Light in the Darkness
by ketrinaliu
Summary: AU,AH,CANON PAIRNGS. Being the daughter of a relentless small town cop never affected Bella's life until one night her world shattered and her life turned into a war zone. DARK THEMES
1. Prologue

_I was in a meadow surrounded by the greenery of the Pacific temperate rainforest. Familiar green was soothing and the rarely in this area observed sun was uplifting. Suddenly, the earth started shaking under my feet and it split open. On the other side of the opening stood my father, calling my name softly._

I woke up. My eyes focused on my frantic father who was most likely the origin point of the earthquake in the dream.

"You have to go, Bells." he whispered. "Take some clothes and run. Hide somewhere until the morning and take the morning bus to Seattle." he was ushering me out of bed. "Go to the central police station in Seattle and deliver this to a homicide detective or the captain. Pay only in cash." He handed me a police file and a wad of money.

"Why, what's going on?"

"We don't have much time, you have to go. I just want you to be safe." We were already downstairs. "Just be safe." he whispered one last time before he planted a gentle fatherly kiss on my forehead and pushed me out the door.

I was still in my pajamas. Shocked and scared I ran into the darkness of the forest to change and find a safe-looking spot to spend the chilly September night.


	2. Chapter 1: Just as the instructions said

**I do not own Twilight**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter One**

 **Just as instructions said**

The morning approached excruciatingly slowly: the mix of fear, worry, coldness and exhaustion turned every minute into hours. As the first signs of morning light grazed the sky I found my way through the damp forest to the bus stop by the highway - that would guarantee less human contact than the Forks bus station in the center of the town.

Getting into the warm, small bus was pleasant. I was lucky because the driver did not recognize me and the few passengers on board had already fallen asleep in their seats. Needless to say, unlike other passengers, I was too stressed out to sleep, so I hid behind the blanket of my long thick hair and decided to inspect the folder that was given to me by my father.  
The word gruesome was too light to describe its contents. There was a bit of everything: financial crimes, trafficking of drugs, weapons and people, torture, murder. I closed and hid it in my backpack before I would regurgitate my breakfast cereal bar.

It was time for another long period of waiting.

In Seattle I was woken up by the driver. I guess, the exhaustion got the better out of me and just before reaching Seattle I dozed off.  
I had visited Seattle before with my father but I had no idea where the police station was. I slipped into the tourist information office and grabbed a few different free maps, neither of which held the information I needed. My phone was low on battery and it was not advanced enough to load a map, but I was still able to google the address, which, luckily for me, was in the map.

My legs unusually effortlessly carried me to the police station - I must have been still affected by the adrenaline because normally I was the clumsiest girl in the whole world. I entered the large modern building which was the complete opposite of the police station in Forks. Inside I approached the receptionist.

"Excuse me?" she lifted her uninterested brown eyes at me and looked my tired, a little shaky form down.

"What can I help you with?" Her voice was empty, a little judging. I did not know what was her problem because the main idea of her work was to help people, give them directions etc.

"I need to speak to a homicide detective or the captain." I repeated my father's instructions. She pushed some buttons on the keyboard and answered:

"An officer will be with you in a minute." Suddenly anger filled me.

"I don't need an officer, I need a detective or the captain." my voice was rising. Suddenly I felt the cuffs of the security guard on my wrists. He was holding me down as if I was a threat and tears of anger and fear started falling from my eyes.

"Uncuff her, Ulley. Look at her, she's not a threat." A strong velvety male voice came from behind us. His perception of me angered me but I was grateful for the man's help.

"Please, I just need to see a detective or the captain." My voice was barely a whisper.

"I am detective Cullen." the same velvety voice said and for the first time he came into focus: he was young, tall, his long face was very sharp, masculine, he had a disarray of bronze on top of his head and his scorching eyes were the deepest shade of emerald green. "Give me a guest pass, Jessica." He ordered the administrator/receptionist and she followed his orders tight-lipped.

He showed me the way to the interrogation room.

"What's your name?" he asked but I was caught of guard by my lifeless face in the one-sided mirror. He obviously noticed me staring at the mirror and added. "No one's in the observation room. And even if someone was, the mic is off."

I shook the dreadful feeling off.

"Bella."

"Just Bella?"

"Isabella Swan."

"Do you want to report a crime, Bella?"

"My father sent me here." I was whispering. "He.. He..." I gasped for air.

"Is he alright?" he sat across from me and pushed a glass of water towards me.

"I don't know." I breathed out while analyzing a plain metal table in front of me.

"Why did he sent you here?"

"He woke me up in the middle of the night," I tried to start at the beginning. "told me to dress up and take the morning bus to Seattle, he told me to bring this file to the police station and give it to a detective or the captain." With my shaking hands I pulled out the file out of my bag and handed it to the detective.

"It' a police case folder." detective Cullen looked at me with curiosity.

"Charlie's a cop."I stammered. "Chief of police."

"Charlie is your father." he clarified.

"Yes." I answered and took a big gulp of water as the detective started looking through the folder.

His eyebrows narrowed more and more with each page.

Suddenly he stood up. "Follow me." he ordered, leading me out to the waiting area. "Wait here, I need to speak to the captain."

From where I sat, I could see captain's office. The wall was glass so I could see that detective Cullen and the Captain were having a heated conversation. A moment later, detective Cullen left the office and entered another office which probably belonged to him. My eyes never left him as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. A few phonecalls later he exited the office and started coming towards me. His sharp eyes were gentle and held a hint of sadness.  
"I am so sorry," he was trying to soothe me and I knew what was coming, "but your father was found dead at your home in Forks."

My world crumbled into darkness.

* * *

 **AN: would love to hear what you think. Reviews are very welcome.**


	3. Chapter 2: Any Progress?

**I do not own Twilight.**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Two**

 **Any Progress?**

 _The darkness cloaked the forest. I could hear the violent wind playing in the treetops as heavy rain soaked the ground. Somewhere very very far sirens were blaring, they were closing in and getting unbearably loud. Once red and blue lights illuminated the forest, I saw my father's form in the mud. I wanted to help but I couldn't move - the quicksand was incapacitating me. I could not breath._

I was blinded by the white light.

"Breathe," someone told me, "calm down. You're alright, you're safe." someone tried to soothe me.

My eyes started adjusting to the light and my vision returned. With each breath my system was assaulted by the smell of sanitizer. _Hospital._

"Miss Swan," a man tried to get my attention, "how are you feeling?" He was a tall, blond, blue-eyed man in his 50s wearing a white coat, his facial features were extremely similar to the ones of detective Cullen who was standing right beside him.

"Uhm. Fine." I was groggy as if I was pumped a lot of painmeds, but I wasn't - I fainted. _I think._ "What happened?"

"You fainted after hearing some bad news." the detective said, his eyes never left my face.

"My father.." I trailed of as a single tear escaped my eyes and rolled down my cheek.

"You were brought to the hospital because you wouldn't wake up." the doctor said. "I suspect that was due to exhaustion, poor diet and overwhelming stress."

"How long was I out?" I was curious.

"Fifteen hours." Detective Cullen informed me.

"Fifteen hours?!" I was hysteric: I was sleeping it off while my dad was somewhere, probably in some cold morgue, alone. "Do You know w-what h-ha-happened back h-home?" It was hard to voice the events out, I didn't want to accept that it was true.

"We're working on it, but you should not worry about it, it's our job. Your job is to rest, get better and stronger." Det. Cullen denied me any information.

"Speaking about that," the doctor stepped in, "you, Miss Swan, have to eat. Edward, will you take her to the cafeteria? I have another patient to attend to."

"Of course." Edward nodded. _Edward._ I realized that I heard detective's name for the first time - it suited him.

Edward took a white robe from the adjacent chair and like a true gentleman held it out for me to slip on. As I got out of the bed and put on the robe I blushed and then took notice of the wheelchair in the corner of the room."

"I am not taking that." I pointed at the wheelchair.

"It's hospital policy." He raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to disagree.

"I am perfectly capable of walking." he cracked a smile at my stubbornness.

"Of course you are. But if you're putting my reputation of being capable to protect my witnesses in danger, you will have to answer all of my questions."

"All?" I was a little lost. "I-I don't know anything."

"We'll see." he led me to the cafeteria.

I wrinkled my nose at the sight of hospital food. It was a mushroom ravioli - the detective unknowingly got one of my absolute favorites which would probably be ruined forever by this cafeteria. Noticing my reaction, he added:

"Food here is not that bad. The kitchens that prepare food for the cafeteria and for the admitted patients are separate so it's nothing like the hospital food." he was sipping coffee, watching me carefully. I didn't feel very hungry, yet I took a bite. "You think you're ready to talk about what happened?"

Swallowing hard I said "I guess."

"Tell me about the day before the night everything happened."

I looked at him. "It was normal, just like any other day: when I woke up Charlie had already left for the station, I drove myself to school, went to my classes, after which I came back home, read a little, then prepared dinner." My life was boring.

"And when Charlie got back home? How did he seem?"

"Tired, I guess."

"Anything out of ordinary about his behavior?"

"No. I don't think so." I shook my head and lost in thought I took a few bites of my ravioli. Then it dawned on me. "Well..." I paused. "No.. It's stupid."

"Everything and anything can help me." Detective pushed.

"He usually watches baseball or football after the dinner, that evening he went to his room. I could hear him doing something there so he did not go to sleep. But how could this help you?"

"Your father was a well-respected police officer, Bella. If he knew that something would happen, he knew that you would be questioned. It's possible that some of his actions may lead us closer to the people who did this to him."

"But if he knew that something would happen, why did he not tell me? After all, he gave me that file. And why both of us couldn't leave?"

"You are his daughter, and from the way his friends and colleagues talked about Charlie and you, he loved you very much. That is a very good reason to want to protect someone." detective's voice was soothing, gentle as if he expected me to burst into tears any moment. Our eyes locked for a moment until I lowered mine and started playing with my food.

"Can I ask you a few more questions?" He asked and I nodded, then he continued. "When you were woken up, was there anyone else?"

"No, he let me grab some clothes, gave me the file and some money, told me what to do with the file and to use only the cash and pushed me out the back door."

"What did you do then?"

"Hid in the forest and came to Seattle, you know the rest." I stabbed a dumpling.

"Do you know what's in the folder?"

"I took a look." I admitted shyly. "It's terrible."

"Did you recognize anyone in the folder?"

"There was a loose picture of a red-haired girl. I think her name is Victoria. Last year she went to Forks High but after a month in Forks her family decided that they didn't like the life of a small town and moved away." I commented.

"I will let you finish your meal. I have to make a call, alright?"

"Sure."

When he finished his call and I had finished my lunch, detective showed me the way back to the single-bed hospital room.

"You have to stay here until tomorrow. The department cleared that with the hospital. If you need anything or remember something new, ask for Dr. Cullen - the man who was here earlier - he will pass any and all information to me."

"And what about tomorrow?" I was worrying my lip. I had no family, no home left, I was still in school and had very little money. I was not sure what would happen to me - would they put me in the system for a year even though I was a day shy of my 18th birthday? There were so many questions swirling in my head.

"We will deal with that tomorrow, Bella, don't worry, I will not let anything bad happen to you. I have to get back to the precinct now."

"Bye"

"Good bye."

I felt as if detective Edward Cullen was holding the weight of the events, preventing it from crushing me. When he left, it all hit me with the full force and I couldn't hold back the tears anymore.

* * *

 **EPOV**

"Hey, Emmett, any news from Rose?" I asked my partner and brother-in-law upon entering the precinct. Rosalie was my sister and Emmett's wife, she wanted to follow in my father's footsteps and become a doctor but her fierce character and stubbornness did not go together with good bedside manner. After graduating medical school she took the path of a forensic pathologist thus she was working on recently to Seattle transported body of Chief Charlie Swan. Knowing how flirtatious Emmett and Rosalie always were, Emmett would be the first to know when Rosalie finished autopsy.

"Nope." he was crouching over his computer, frustration visible on his face. "You mentioned on the phone the girl was cooperative. Did she give any new information?"

"She's a bit confused, sad, the Chief was her only family, but she tried to talk. Have you checked out that red-haired ex-classmate?" I sat down at my table

"I noticed that pic too. It really looks weird with all those bloody pictures." He shrugged and passed me a sheet. "That's all I could find."

 _Victoria Adams, 19, daughter of Laurent and Cecilia Adams, last known address - Forks, Washington._

 _Laurent Adams, 45, lawyer at Marcus and Co., last known address, Los Angeles, California._

 _Cecilia Adams - deceased in 2014, unsolved stabbing, case no. S-WA-14051395475_

"The bodies in this case just keep piling up _._ " I murmured under my breath.

"ya don't say." Emmett put in. "That damn stabbing might not be related." He handed me a case file. "It was Paul's case and his record of closing cases isn't very high."

I looked through the case file parts of which were missing.

"Emmett, I get a bad feeling about this. Get Jazz to look into it discretely, Paul is an angry and revengeful guy, if he learns that we are doubting his work he will probably set fire to the whole department."

"Hey man, the boss is not gonna like that we are working with Jasper. You know they already think that the two of us are too cozy working together and that we are planning a revolution." He chuckled. " Adding your brother to a high level case will just be gasoline to the fire."

"No one has to know that this is related to our case. No one has to know we are looking into this at all. If it comes to it, I will deal with Eleazar, he's a reasonable man and he enjoys good whiskey." I smirked at Emmett.

Once Emmett left to find Jasper, I opened the folder Chief Swan put together for us. I looked through it a million times already and I knew that within that folder lay the answer leading to the killer of a cop and many more people.

Charlie Swan's murder was a professional hit. Before death the man was tortured, the place was trashed, but no fingerprints, biologicals, fibers or trace collected. The last hope of obtaining any evidence was Rosalie's magic. Even though I hated to admit it, Rose saved my ass on multiple cases, I was just hoping this would be one of them too.

Wait a minute! There it was in front my eyes: the folder contained photos from a crime scene of a Tanner family killing: the wife/mother was shot point-blank in the head, teenage daughter was raped and beaten to death, the husband/father was shot after living through the exact same torturing mechanism: broken fingers, shot knee-caps and a final shot to the head. The only thing Charlie avoided was watching his daughter raped and killed - I shivered at the idea of Isabella being violated in such way, she was just so fragile and gentle... Yet, the unanswered question was whether Charlie found out who the killer was or whether the Swans have some other connection to the other dead family.

I searched and found a few pictures of the Tanners while they were still alive and sent them to Carlisle with a text: _"Ask the girl if she recognizes any of them. Get back to me ASAP."_

My phone beeped and I thought it was a text from Carlisle but it was Rose: _"Morgue in 5",_ I texted _"Coming"._

* * *

 **A/N: tell me what you think.**


	4. Chapter 3: Invisible Ink

**A/N: This one is a bit shorter, but I promise that the next one will be much longer. Please review, I would love to learn what to improve.**

 **I do not own Twilight**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Three**

 **Invisible Ink**

 **EPOV**

"It's a morgue, not your bedroom." I interrupted my sister's and Emmett's heavy make-out session.

"Just because you don't get laid, doesn't mean I can't." Emmett grumbled.

"There's a corpse on a table." I reminded him.

"Speaking of which," Rosalie interrupted after straightening her lab coat, "The only physical evidence I got were three 45 caliber bullets - two from his knees and one from his skull - ballistics are working on them as we speak, but I am not sure if that will be any help. It's professional, cold and clean. Though, I have some good news too." she lifted the sheet and turned UV lights on. Chief Swan's chest lit up like a Christmas tree. "That," she pointed, "is an invisible ink tattoo. "

"Wow, I wouldn't have thought him to be a tattoo lover." Emmett boomed

I looked more closely. It was a multi-colored fluorescence ink tattoo of random-looking numbers and letters or gibberish words that was not random at all - it was some kind of code, using which Chief Swan was trying to tell us something that was important enough for him to hide on his own body in invisible ink. That took dedication and time.

"Pictures?" I asked without raising my eyes to meet Rose's.

"Already taken" She extended a batch of pictures to me. I grabbed those and left without saying another word.

"You're welcome, jackass!" Rosalie shouted far behind me.

Emmett caught up with me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"I have to work." I spat out. "I have to get to the bottom of this."

"Hey, I don't like all the mysterious and creepy stuff too, but we're all on the same team here."

"Are we, McCarty? Five minutes ago you were eating my sister's face off."

"Oh, come on, everyone needs to get away, freshen up sometimes. Doing this job and not getting away from all the crude stuff at least for a minute will eat you alive one day."

I stopped to glare at him. I couldn't stop. every time I closed my eyes I saw images of victims, their crying families and glistening doe-like chocolate eyes of Isabella Marie Swan who, I couldn't shake the feeling, was in danger. I left Emmett standing in the middle of a long corridor.

* * *

Three cups of coffee later, I was still at the very beginning. Carlisle texted me that the girl had no recognition of the Tanners, Jazz was still looking into the mysterious stabbing, Emmett was trying to find the artist who made the tattoo and I had worked on the mess of symbols on Chief Swan's body.

At this point, the neon blurred in my vision and my over-caffeinated brain had hard time focusing on anything particular. It felt as if my head was on fire. I hated to admit that Emmett's words were true - there was a certain limit for work. I stood up, rolled the blinds down and fell on the office couch - a powernap was essential for future progress.

I dozed off within minutes.

 _I was in the cop bar that was just a block away from the precinct. Leon, the owner of the place, was serving beer to happy cops who just closed a big drug operation._

 _"It's not your turn to celebrate." said a soft innocent voice behind me and I spun around surprised. My eyes met the deepest chocolate eyes in the world and they were disappointed. I disappointed her._

 _She turned around and left me dumbfounded by the bar. I ran after her outside, shouted for her to wait but she didn't seem to hear me. And then she stopped and turned around, there was a knife sticking out of her abdomen. She collapsed on the cold pavement, the world disappeared, there was only her corpse illuminated by a red neon sign - **"Volterra"**._

I woke up gasping for air, shot up, a little dizzy because of my speed, and ran to my table. It was in front of my eyes all this time and I missed it - red letters AV, CV and MV indicated Aro, Caius and Marcus Volturi - the brothers who ran the largest and probably the oldest mafia ring in the world, the brothers no crime-fighting organization could find and nail, the brothers who became the main characters of mafia tales. If Charlie Swan had any information about the Volturi brothers, there was no doubt he became a target and everyone close to him were targets as well. In this case, Bella was a target.

I locked the evidence in a safe in my desk and took off to the hospital.


	5. Chapter 4: The Draw

**A/N: It took longer than usual to finish this one but, as promised, it's a (much) longer chapter. I would like to know your opinions and advices, so, please, review.**

 **I do not own Twilight**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Four**

 **The Draw**

 **EPOV**

When I arrived at the hospital it was almost 4 a.m. and Isabella was sleeping soundly in her hospital room. She must have trashed in her sleep because her bedding was tangled around her feet and her mahogany hair were haywire around her head. Her face was pale and tired. She whimpered in her sleep and without a thought a caressed her soft cheek as an offer of comfort.

I doubted she would find that comforting if she woke up, she would probably be scared and disgusted that someone intruded her personal space in such manner when she was unconscious, especially, when she had so little of it left. Everyone was questioning her about her life, her feelings, trying to comfort and I knew from personal experience that condolences often did not bring closure and only deepened the heart ache because other people's words made the events even more realistic.

She whimpered again and my heart broke because of her pain. I worked on numerous cases with numerous victims but never had one felt so personal and close. I wanted that girl to be safe and happy because unlike some people, she had a future: she was kind, wise, young and beautiful. Yes, I knew she was someone I had to protect and she was ten years younger than me but I couldn't help but admire her soft facial features, full lips, deep, warm chocolate eyes, thick and long wavy hair and slender body.

Being here with her, I felt relaxed to a certain degree, but the case did not leave my mind. Accompanied by her occasional whimpers and sights I continued to study various evidence on my tablet. The realization about Volturi brothers opened my eyes a little. The colors of the letters and numbers also held a meaning - Volturi were always associated with red, hence the red AV, CV and MV. Some other two-lettered signs were in blue - maybe people of a rival gang? Blue was the color of multiple mafia families including the Romanian crime family which in recent years became active in Washington state area and are said to be mortal enemies of the Volturi family. Was there a possibility that we were on the brink of a turf war? That could not be excluded.

The numbers, though, were a mystery. Most of them were in white but there was one green 15 digit sequence which had dots after sixth and fourteenth number. It couldn't have been a bank account number...

Isabella started stirring distracting me from my thoughts. Once she opened her eyes she froze for a second and then relaxed as soon as she recognized me. I gave her a contained smile.

"Good morning, Bella."

"What time is it?" she furrowed her brows. "What are you doing here."

I took a swift look at my watch. "It's just past 7 a.m. Doctors will soon start the rounds and I just popped in to see how you are doing."

"Are there any news?"

"At this point, sadly, I cannot share anything with you but we are making progress." My phone rang and I smiled at her. "See, that's my partner calling. I'll be right back and you should dress up."

I walked out into the corridor. "Emmett" I greeted.

"Where are you, man? You disappeared from the office and you're not at your apartment."

"Hospital, checking up on the girl. Any news?"

"Tracked that tattoo artist. Woke him up too. Wasn't happy, but cooperated once I threatened to kill his business and put him in jail for obstruction of justice." Emmett chuckled "Apparently, working with invisible ink takes longer and costs significantly more, but Swan wanted that done as quickly as possible and he wasn't bothered by the high price and payed in cash. Also Chief requested the colors to match the ones he had used when writing on paper so they must mean something to him. "

"I figured as much. I actually think that has something to do with the V trio."

"V trio? Volturi?!" he shouted over the phone.

"Hush, Em. We have to be careful and smart with everything that has any connection to this case or it's going fall apart and bring us down with it."

"Sure. Sure. I'm in my car going back to the precinct. I'll review the case file from the _V_ involvement perspective."

"Thanks. Carlisle is coming, gotta go." I ended the call. "Morning, dad."

"You're here early." he noticed.

"I just came. Miss Swan is awake." I said in a matter-of-factly.

"Good, I'll be making rounds soon. I can make sure she's the first to be seen and one of your officers may take her to the hotel or whereever you are taking her."

"I'll wait with her." I nodded and went back to her room - she was sitting on her bed, head down, playing with her fingers.

We were surrounded by awkward silence. I did not know what to tell her and I believed that she was too shy to try to ask me about my progress again. During that silence my mind wandered back to the evidence and without even thinking I blurted out:

"What do you think of when you hear the word green?"

"Uhm. Plants, Earth, why?" she said a little lost.

"Nothing." I went back to my shell of silence. Her mind was so innocent, I could have bet that a lot of Americans would have added money to that list. _Plants,_ I thought, _were the numbers about weed plantations?_ For some reason I doubted that. Earth also seemed obvious, unfortunately, the green planet was too vast when you had no idea where to look... _where?_ Chief Swan was giving me the directions over plenty of random pieces of information, but what if he was giving just giving the plain, normal directions this time?

I texted Emmett " _Check the green numbers on the chest as coordinates."_

Phone beeped a minute later _"Bingo, bro. Warehouse in Seattle."_

I answered: _"Find everything you can about it, we can't go in blind."_

I put the phone in my pocket and raised my eyes to meet Isabella's. She was studying me and I wanted to chuckle - she had a detective-like look, observing, analyzing me and trying to read my body language. Before anything else happened, Carlisle entered.

"Good morning, Miss Swan, Edward." He bowed his head politely. "How are you feeling, Bella? Have you slept well?"

"Yes." she was lying - the dark circles under her eyes gave that away and Carlisle's reaction told me he didn't believe her either.

"The papers of your release are being prepared as we speak." Carlisle informed her. "Though, I don't think that will grant you your freedom." light-hearted smile grazed his features.

"Certainly not." I nodded.

There was a knock on the door and a well-familiar nurse came in. Jessica Stanley used to be my classmate and after finishing high school she surprised me by choosing to go to a nursing school. She was never very compassionate or interesting but she was always very flirtatious. Even after all these years of denying her advances she still batted her eyelashes at me.

"Hello, Edward." She greeted. "Dr. Cullen, these are the release forms."

"Thank you, Jessica." He dismissed her politely and signed the document he had taken from her then he turned to Bella. "Miss Swan, I hope you will take good care of yourself and again, I'm so sorry for your loss." At the words of loss, she lowered her eyes, probably trying to hide her watery red eyes. "I'm leaving you in police care."

He bid farewell to both of us and left.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Go where?"

"Let's start with breakfast."

"Sure." she hoped off the bed and lost her balance falling into my arms. As I steadied her petite form she murmured an apology and turned alluring shade of bright cherry red. I bit down a snarky and sarcastic two-left-feet comment at the sight of her embarrassment. The essence of innocence and fragility that surrounded her softened me to no end - never had I tip-toed around a girl this much, never to this extent.

Once we were in my silver Volvo she spoke up.

"You know, you don't have to babysit me even if someone told you you have to."

"Who says I am?" I raised an eyebrow curious of what brought this on.

"You're the one taking me to eat, taking me _somewhere_ , spending half of the night in the hospital. You.." I cut her off.

"I didn't spend the night in hospital." my voice was serious but still a bit defensive.

"Only since around 4 a.m." she chuckled.

"How do you know?" what kind of secret powers did this young woman have.

"Black magic." she joked and then added completely serious "I woke up a few times throughout the night."

"Tsk tsk tsk, just ten minutes ago you lied to your doctor." I reprimanded her trying to change the subject of me spending the night by her bed.

"Yeah, but it's not something life-threatening." she agreed involuntarily.

"Well, I still think he enjoys honesty. I certainly do." she slouched a little, clearly uncomfortable because of my comment.

"Sorry, I don't think whining would have made any difference." that single sentence gave me even more knowledge of how deep and considerate of others she was.

"It probably wouldn't."

"May I ask something?" she whispered uncertain

"Shoot." My voice was light and open but my eyes were fixed on her and I knew that if she looked me in the eyes she would have seen the wariness beneath the layer of vocal carelessness.

"Charlie was a cop. I know I should be informed about the progress of the case, but I am not. Is it really that bad?"

I sighted. Of course she wanted answers, but could I give them? _No._ The less she knew about this world, the less she knew about Volturi operations, the better and safer it was for her. I was already worried about her being targeted because of her close relation to the victim and his work. What made it more dangerous for her was her natural observance - she had the mind of a detective.

"I'll try to tell you as much as possible. It's true, the case is complicated and I am not telling you things because I need to protect you."

"Protect me from what?"

I gave her a dirty look.

"Your father's occupation gave him a death sentence. People he researched are dangerous and powerful and they kill anyone who gets too close to the truth of their lives, their existence."

In my peripheral vision I saw her starting to tremble at the mention of her father's death but she did her best to keep herself together and not look hurt or scared or vulnerable. Luckily, we could stop from elaborating the darker themes since I turned into a parking lot of an Italian restaurant called _Bella Italia._ I almost laughed out loud when I realized the name of the place included her name - I chose it not because of it's name but because of the amazing food.

"Italian for breakfast?" she was skeptical.

"We can go somewhere else." I challenged her.

"No, no, it's fine." she hurriedly answered.

At the door we were met by a tall black-haired hostess.

"Good morning. Welcome to _Bella Italia_."

"A table for two?" I asked and the hostess batted her eyelashes at me just like Jessica did that same morning. Even though the place was empty at this early hour, instead of two-seated table she offered us a family-size table. This was offensively ridiculous, not only she disregarded my request but also she seemed to make assumptions that Bella was just some simple, non-interesting sibling. Not that she was something more, heck, we weren't even related, but she certainly could have been my youthful-looking girlfriend.

"Something more private?" I slipped bill into her hand quickly. We needed the privacy: even though I wasn't very keen on talking about the case, some things could be talked about and I didn't want to be overheard as much as I didn't want to showcase Bella's emotions to the whole restaurant.

The hostess took us to a secluded corner booth and excused herself, however she was soon changed by the waitress.

"Welcome to _Bella Italia."_ another 20-something dark-haired girl greeted us. "Here are your menus. Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thanks." Bella answered while taking the menu.

"Not yet, thanks." I agreed with Bella.

Since the place was completely empty, we were served quickly after ordering our foods - Gnocchi with portobello mushroom sauce and a coke for Bella and a carbonara and black neat coffee for me. The food there never disappointed, that was clear from Bella's astonished expression as she tasted the steaming hot gnocchi enveloped by a generous amount of rich and creamy sauce.

"Wow, this is good." she exclaimed.

"I know." I was a little cocky about my choice of restaurant.

"You come here often?"

"Often enough. I order out a lot."

"That seems to be a cop thing. Before I moved in with Charlie, he used to order a lot of pizzas too, he couldn't cook to save a life."

"Stereotypes. I can cook. I choose not to." the conversation with her flowed so easily, our little bickering brightening her sad face.

"Yeah, right."

"Now you're just underestimating me. I'll show you someday what a mean grilled cheese or lasagna means." I winked at her. "When did you move to Forks?"

"About two years ago." ah, the little sparkle from her eyes disappeared.

"And before that you lived with your mother?"

"Yeah, she married about three years ago, she used to stay with me instead of traveling with her new businessman of a husband but she was unhappy, so I moved to give her so needed freedom."

"Where is she now?"

"No idea." Bella shook her head slightly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Though, she got hold of herself and continued to speak. "Last I heard, she was with Phil in Europe. I haven't heard from her for almost 7 months now."

"Sorry to hear that. The department is trying to contact her."

"Of course they are, but what if they fail?"

"For a little while you will be staying in Seattle under police protection."

"Stay where?"

"Department-issued apartment."

"And I am just supposed to sit there and hide? What about Charlie, the funeral, what about school? It's my senior year, I can't miss it." she was panicking.

"It's not forever. Charlie's funeral will be organized by the association of police officers once he is released by the coroner, you will be able to say your goodbyes."

"What about my life?"

"You will get it back eventually. For now, you are in police custody, later you will be assigned a guardian who will support you until you don't need him or her anymore. Instead of a guardian, you may also ask for independence but I think you should really consider what you will be offered by the guardian - it's difficult to try to put your life together when you are young and alone." my voice was smooth and soothing with a hint of authority - I didn't want her to go off the rails because she was alone, had no one to talk to, no one to support her. I considered asking Carlisle and Esme to apply for her guardianship - they certainly had the experience, time and money to help another girl.

Bella was biting her lower lip deep in thought, most likely considering the obstacles that Chief's death put in her path.

"School?" she raised her eyebrows.

"It's still the beggining of the year. You're not missing much, though, if you are interested, I will make sure that while in custody you will be homeschooled."

"That's not your job, is it? I don't want to bother you any more than I already do."

"It's fine, you don't. Also, it's just one phonecall."

On that note, a waitress approached us.

"Would you like anything else? A desert, maybe?"

"No, thank you, can we get the bill." I asked and noticed that Bella started opening her bag.

The waitress left and I spoke out a little annoyed.

"No way I'm letting you pay for yourself."

"No." her eyes met mine and they were full of confidence and resistance. "I'm not letting you pay for me." she sounded a little like an annoyed child who desperately wanted to be treated equally.

"No. That's not in question."

The waitress came bearing the bill and I simply slipped her a bill I knew would cover the costs of our breakfast.

"No change." and I practically dragged the stubborn girl that accompanied me out of the restaurant.

"Get in." I told her by the car, but she was just standing there in the parking lot, her arms crossed in front of her chest, fury of an angry kitten dancing in her eyes. "DO you want me to cuff you?" I chuckled taking my handcuffs from my belt and swinging them in the air.

"Fine." she huffed and took the passenger seat.

Pulling out of the paring lot, I dialed Emmett.

"Em, hey, I'm on the way to the apartment now, is everything set up?" I asked once he answered with _"Sup?"_

"Yep. Officers are waiting for you. Drop the girl off and bring your ass to the station."

"I'll be there in 30." I hung up.

Bella was staring through the window at the passing by city. She sometimes was so silent that it disturbed me not having any vocal or bodily clues to knowing how she felt or what she thought.

"What are you thinking?" I asked her.

"What's about color green that had you so interested?"in the mirror I saw her blush slightly and drop her eyes to her knees.

"You know something I should know?"

"Not likely, it's just a weird question."

"It's also not that important."

"Hiding things from me will not solve anything."

"At least you will not be in danger."

"You won't tell me, will you?"

"No. At least not yet." my answer was short and final. "We're here."

The apartment building we parked by was tall and modern-looking. No one would have told that in that building was one of several department-owned apartments/safe-houses. I escorted Bella to the apartment on the 12th floor where we were met by a young police officer Seth. I had worked with Seth on numerous occasions before and even though he was young, he earned his trust and had proven his integrity.

"Bella," I caught her attention since she was taking in her rather exclusive-looking surroundings, "This is Seth, he is one of the people working on your detail. You can ask him anything you want. I am sure he will introduce you to others when the time comes."

"Sure thing." Seth agreed munching on his sandwich. Once he swallowed he added. " Sorry for this, didn't have time to get breakfast. Nice to meet ya, Bella."

He was easygoing, funny and kind and I saw Bella relax a bit by my side.

"It's a pleasure." Bella said offering her hand which Seth shook.

"Now, if you don't mind, I have to get back to the precinct."

"Of course." Bella's eyebrows furrowed a tiny bit, but it was enough for me to notice the crease forming in her forehead.

Was she unwilling to let me go? I certainly was: from the moment I saw her trying to get away from Sam's grip I felt a very primal and unexplainable need to protect her unknowingly drawing me closer and closer to her. That swayed my priorities to the wrong side of the line - I was rarely very hands-on with the victims or their families and I usually stayed objective by keeping my distance, however her case was different - I didn't want to let her out of my sight _ever,_ as if turning away would make her shatter into tiny pieces like a porcelain doll. Yet, I knew that I had other responsibilities and I was needed somewhere else - the warehouse, for example.

"No one needs you here." Seth disturbed my train of thought and ushered me towards the door. "She's in good hands, Ed. Go, do your job."

He practically kicked me out of the apartment. I heard the door shut behind me and the click of a deadbolt lock separate me from the girl. A sudden feeling of emptiness came over mę but I ignored it and after stealing a quick glance at the secure door that hid her face from me, I hurried back to my car.


	6. Chapter 5: Walls, Walls Everywhere

**A/N: I don't want to be pushy but seriously, I need your reviews. It's my first story and I am interested what people have to say and how I could get better, how I could deliver something interesting and worth your time. Also, I'm sorry for irregular updates, life is a bit hectic sometimes and I'm working on two stories simultaneously (my writing depends on my mood and inspiration), but I try not to leave this behind for an extended period of time. Have a great day/night!**

 **I do not own Twilight**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Five**

 **Walls, walls everywhere**

 **EPOV**

My knuckles turned white as my hands clenched the steering wheel of my baby Volvo. The car was running as smooth as a professional ice skater flying across the rink, only the rink for the skater turned out to be too small as a red light flashed in front of my face. It was the second traffic light that conspired against me in my attempt to get to the station and away from the black hole that was Isabella Swan - my mind wandered back to the depth of her chocolate brown eyes involuntarily.

"Screw this." I exclaimed loudly in the privacy of my car and turned on my sirens. The blaring sound solved part of my problems as the sea of Seattle traffic parted to make an almost completely free lane for me. The visual of the blurred city passing by at high speed was exhilarating and cleansing - a slight surge of adrenaline made me focus on the task at hand - driving safe in a city flooded by people and potential victims of my road rage - and made my burdens dissipate in the wind that whirled around my sleek car. All too soon I was back at the police station that was practically my home.

Many nights had I spent working on various case angles in this building, slowly paving my path to the top of the ranks. Well, maybe not that slowly - I was the youngest detective to achieve my position in the history of department. Though, this case was just beggining to unravel, I felt the kind of pressure building in my body I have never felt before. I entered the building hoping to get the sense of normality, sense of the familiar building that was my ground of thriving, but there was nothing normal about working on this case.

It seemed that even always easy-going Emmett was affected, pulled deeper than usually by the dark shadows that surrounded this case. Approaching our office, I saw through the glass door that he was intently staring at his computer screen as his fingers flitted quickly over the keyboard. I opened the door and my Emmett jumped slightly.

"Jeez, Ed, knock or something, stop sneaking up."

"It's my office too, you know." I slumped into my leather office chair - it was not department-issue but I spent enough time in here working overtime to make some indulging updates. "Now spill what you've got." I said emotionless.

"Nothing vital." he huffed.

"The warehouse?"

"Under surveillance right now. I'm trying to get its' floor plan, but this system keep denying me access." he said through gritted teeth

"Did the girl tell you about the coordinates?"

"No, I don't know if she knows about the tattoo. Though, she gave me some inspiration." I logged in on my computer. "Do you know who the warehouse belongs to?"

"Sulpicia and Co."

I typed the name Emmett gave me in the police database search engine. Apart from the country of origin - France - there was nothing about the company. No name of the CEO, no contact numbers, no papertrail. Zilch. I tried googling it but that came out to be a waste of time. I growled while rubbing my temples. I could feel a stubble starting to form on my face - a great indication I wasn't home in awhile.

"Have you tried checking the address for power usage and any other maintenance fees?" I tried to think rationally.

"It's not using a lot of power so it's not a plantation or something." Emmett said. "It would seem it was abandoned if not for the occasional spikes of energy use every other week or so." He handed me a sheet of data which, as Emmett had said, showed occasional spikes of energy use on Thursdays or Fridays every other week for the past three months.

"Hey, if this is correct and whoever is doing whatever in the warehouse according to some plan, they should show up there tomorrow night or Friday."

"We should crash the party." Emmett grinned probably thinking of multiple successful arrests when we barged in on unsuspecting criminals, catching them red-handed and practically unable to make deals or get away from justice in any other way possible. Yet, in this case the red-handed criminals might have a chance to get a deal - we needed the top of pyramid not the bottom and, in my experience, the heads rarely showed up for pre-scheduled, unchanging predictable time meetings - that was too risky.

"Damn timing, they could do this tonight - we have so little and they are forcing us to wait to get more." I punched the armrest of my chair in annoyance.

"We're not even sure if that warehouse would give us more." Since when did Emmett become the voice of reason?

"It's coordinates were tattooed on a dead man's chest in invisible ink. It has to be important enough." I didn't give up on that idea yet. I needed that as if I was drowning and it was a passing boat, I needed that for my sanity.

After a light knock on the door Jasper stuck his head into my office.

"I hope you haven't forgotten our lunch later today."

"What lunch?" Emmett perked up. I swear that man was always hungry - I wasn't sure how my non-kitchen-friendly sister managed to keep him fed and satisfied without living solely on takeout food.

"Nope, we're still on. Fred's at 1, right?" I said without emotion. Fred's was a small dinner close to the police station which was not yet discovered by the force - it was a great place to have a conversation that was not supposed to be overheard by fellow policemen, close enough so as we would not waste time and Fred offered some high-quality steaks.

"Oh right." Emmett caught up with our intentions to discuss the mysterious stabbing. "Yeah, we'll meet you there, bro."

"Super." Jazz flashed a smile and disappeared.

Emmett and I still had three hours till our meeting with Jasper. Emmett continued torturing the database of building plans while I was trying to determine any other information about it. It seemed as if that building didn't really exist - no information about prior owners, no detailed info about current owners, nothing just a blindly closed wall of dark red warehouse bricks.

"I rock!" Emmett boomed making me jump slightly.

"What?"

"The plan." he turned his screen towards me. The blueprint showed a large open space on the first floor of the building and a lot of smaller rooms on the second floor and in the basement - unfortunately, nothing out of ordinary, nothing that didn't seem to belong there.

"Good. Our SWAT teams have to get this before tomorrow."

God, how I wished tomorrow was today. I felt so helpless I wanted to shoot somebody. I needed a rush of adrenaline - something that would speed up my brain, open my eyes. This case was infuriatingly complex - all the evidence, random facts and numbers were swirling in my head, making me slightly dizzy and there in the back of my mind _she_ surfaced again. _Idiot. Idiot._ I repeated soundlessly to myself. I shoundn't be this attached - I was no teenage boy, but I felt like one when my mind obsessively wandered back to those glorious sweet chocolate eyes. _Bella._ She possessed my mind. She surfaced from the sea of irrelative information, toyed with my neural network, making even less sense of the overwhelming knowledge or, shall I say, the unknown.

There was a part of me that wanted to run back to her as if she was the light that attracted bugs in the midst of the darkest night. Though, the well-lit streets of a buzzing city of Seattle were never that dark even under thick cover of clouds, but I could only imagine the petite girl lost in the rainforest of Forks. Unseen. Unheard. Terrified.

"Eddie, wake up." Emmett jolted me from my fruitless daze.

"It's Edward." My tone was cold and harsh.

"You realize you look like a crazy man, staring into one spot for an eternity."

I rolled my eyes. While I was a thinker, Emmett was a talker. He never hid his emotions or thoughts very well and that's what I liked about him. I faced enough lies and liars in my life to enjoy the openness of my brother-in-law. Luckily, he refrained himself from speaking something insensitive or too revealing in front of a victim or a suspect.

Nevertheless, I didn't argue about his comment - I felt like a crazy man - I just shifted my gaze from the far wall of the room to the spread out casefile on my table. It mirrored the mess that was my mind at the moment. I started absent-mindedly sifting through the papers as I came to look at the picture of the chief's house - by the front door was a hook on which an empty gun holster hang, I could see no gun in any of the other pictures and no gun was documented as recovered - it was missing. Chief was certainly carrying and I doubted he had given it to his daughter, after all, she was just a child, not to mention that there was no gun in her personal belongings when she was admitted to the hospital.

I ran search on the weapon - maybe it popped up somewhere, was used or discarded and found. Nothing. I put a tag on it - any new information related to the gun would be sent as a notification to mine or Emmett's e-mail. It might have been another possible lead but it still didn't give me anything substantial. It was like being herded in a blind alley - just walls, walls everywhere.

They always say - track the money. I had a monetary paper trail and it was completely useless as after checking the accounts I learned that all of them were in banks that offered complete anonymity and protection. I checked the money wire times against the dates of the meetings in the warehouse but there was no pattern visible. What is more, part of the banking records were old, dated back in 2014 which so far made no sense, because all of the other evidence was about relatively recent events except for the stabbing. The stabbing! I jumped - we needed to meet Jasper and it was almost time.

"Emmett, let's go, bro." I hurried him out of his chair.

"Whoa, bro, you're gonna get a hallway speeding ticket." he laughed. "Rose is joining us."

"What were you doing? Flirting with your wife over the phone this whole time?" I mocked the big man's complete dependency on my sister.

"No need to be jealous, buddy." I rolled my eyes - I had no idea why he thought I was jealous of their relationship. A sudden image of them molesting each other in the morgue flashed in my mind and I felt like throwing up.

* * *

Emmett, Rosalie and I arrived at the diner together. Jasper was nowhere to be seen so we took the furthest corner booth. Amanda - our usual waitress - approached us shortly and served us much needed coffee. We ordered four steaks - Rosalie might have looked like a artificial and spoilt supermodel but hell, that girl wasn't shy about eating what was considered a man-meal. The corpses weren't the only thing she was good with too, she was better mechanic that Emmett, Jasper and me together which to most men seemed to be intimidating. Well, I was happy Emmett didn't get scared because of her frosty behavior and _"I'm not available"_ games.

Jasper came just before our steaks were served. Actually, I was pretty sure Amanda waited to serve them all together.

"How's it goin', Jazz?" I pretended to small-talk since Amanda was still within hearing range. She was not a threat but too many people were involved in this and I did not want to risk her blabbing something to another cop, for example, Paul, who might stumble upon this place.

"Busy." he looked around catching my drift and continued after seeing the coast was clear. "I have enough obligations without the odd jobs you decide to kick my way, Edward."

"What stung you today?" I raised an eyebrow at my brother.

"Paul has been following me around all day like a puppy." annoyance colored his voice

"He knows you've been looking into the case?"

"Not likely. He might suspect something. He saw me talking to Emmett yesterday."

That wasn't anything unusual. After all, Emmett was married to his twin sister.

"Ludicrous. Of course you would talk to Emmett. He's your brother-in-law." Rosalie thought along the same lines.

"Yeah, but rumors fly and it doesn't lessen the tension in the office." Jasper explained. Unlike me and Emmett, Jasper didn't have a separated office - he worked in a cubicle and was well aware of the emotion dynamics between cops.

"Rumors?" my voice was a little higher than normal - what happened to everyone minding their own business. Well, maybe it was to be expected, after all, my conversation with Eleazar was quiet a spectacle even if it was behind closed doors and we were surrounded by cops who were all too keen about getting into someone else's business.

"Everyone saw your heated convo with Eleazar. A detective can sense a high profile case coming through the door." Jazz confirmed my suspicions.

"Well, Eddie sens'd it first." Emmett cut in still too occupied with his steak to speak something significant.

"It's Edward, you oaf." I glared at Emmett. "I didn't sense it. That girl," I ground my teeth slightly at the mention of her," was begging for a homicide detective or the captain. I was at the right place, at the right time."

"It's strange." Jasper mumbled under his nose while cutting his piece of meat. "Emmett sent me a copy of the file and it looks more like a organized crime case."

"Chief might not have trusted the OC division." Rosalie commented.

"Yeah, but why?" My mind started to wander off but Rosalie kept me grounded as she continued her hypothesis.

"Remember how your father used to talk about the oldschool Chicago? Didn't he tell us a story that often enough cops from OC were involved with the crime families? Could Chief Swan have thought that there was someone dirty in the force? Someone who was connected to whomever you are looking for?"

Then the jackpot dinged! Blue was the representative color of the police force - the color of the other two-lettered markings on Chief's chest. As the red letter represented the Volturi, blue could have meant dirty cops. I forgot my meal altogether as I rose to leave the diner but Jazz grabbed me by my wrist.

"Sit." that wasn't a question or a plea, it was an order of an ex-soldier. "Whatever you're thinking of, it can wait, I have more for you."

"I researched the stabbing. I don't think it was a mugging gone wrong. In the casefile I found a money trail that matched perfectly the timeline of the stabbing. Two hours before estimated TOD 50K was transferred into an unknown account." Jasper stopped talking as he saw the waitress coming our way.

"Would you like a refill of coffee?"

There was a series of "no thanks" and she left us alone after telling to call her if we needed anything.

"An hour after the TOD of Cecilia Adams another 150K was transferred to that same account. It's too close to be a coincidence." Jazz continued

"Have you managed to uncover whom it was transferred to or from who?" Emmett asked, this time he was serious.

"Secured information. I have no idea, I can't really go snooping around random bank accounts without causing suspicion." even if he tried he would've ran into the same problems I did.

"Is that all?" I was growing impatient, I needed to go back to my office and make sure I didn't hallucinate the blue PL - Paul Lahote - he was not in organized crime, but he was for sure raising suspicion.

"One more thing, the woman had a necklace on her when she died." Jasper's fingers slid over the touchscreen of his phone. "I'm sending both of you the picture now. It caught my eye in the pictures so I went to the evidence storage and took a look - it's antique, perfectly maintained except for an out-of-place engraving of what seems to be a swan on the other side of the pendant."

"Whoa!" Emmett exclaimed in shock.

I just handed a 20 dollar bill to Jasper who was closest to me and rushed out of the diner leaving my gaping unhappy family and half of my uneaten steak behind.


	7. Chapter 6: Patience

**Hello, please, review. I promise to lighten up this story soon but it's still a crime story so beware, some drama is coming your way. Though, not in this chapter.**

 **I do not own Twilight**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Six**

 **Patience**

Rage filled my veins as I saw two blue letters etched in the skin of dead policeman - _PL._ My body quivered as I struggled to relax my tense muscles. Paul Lahote - the dirty cop - was right there, just outside my office and I was glued to the floor by the little bit of sensible mind that I still had left. That bastard wasn't in it alone and letting my temper take over me would have ruined any chances of finding the other moles, other traitors. But I managed to channel my negative energy into productive work.

Paranoia made me question everyone from the mere traffic cop that spent his days hangin' around the department to the captain himself. Though, I knew Eleazar for an extended period of time and the thought of the possibility that he was dirty crossed my mind for a mere second. Mere second more than my mind needed to start creating conspiracy theories: he could have been involved, after all, he tried to stop me from taking the case, told me it was not my jurisdiction to take it. Yet, after finding their chief in such gruesome manner, the fellow cops from the town of Forks were beyond happy to accept the manpower and additional, more advanced resources of SPD and that melted Eleazar's resistance.

Deep down I understood Eleazar's choice - it was heavily influenced by the politics. As a detective, I rarely gave thought to the way the media portrayed me, what various politicians wanted from me or how much money they offered to keep the department running full force. Eleazar, on the other hand, endured it on a daily basis and invading the case that belonged to another department, let alone another city, seemed out of question for his political mind. Luckily, Chief Swan seemed to have chosen who would take his case before he died and his officers seemed to honor his wishes.

Mark, the guy from Forks police department I talked to, was kind enough to share everything they found, everything they put down in their little black notebooks, everything that was frighteningly similar to the Tanner family case. I looked for other similar cases, other matching MOs of signatures but there was nothing that matched in the Washington state. There were a few similar cases in Arizona and California which worried me a little because it already classified as a case that could be overtaken by the feds.

It wasn't so much my pride as it was fear that this case would be taken away together with the girl who brought it to my attention. With each minute of not seeing _her_ passing I felt increasingly more worried about her safety. Making sure she was alright became my personal goal without even knowing it. I wanted to see her...

Enough. I shouldn't see her. Not now and possibly not ever (or only in court when all of this is over). It was dangerous for Isabella and for this case.

Thankfully, Emmett came back, putting an end to my sulking. He was angry and I earned it. I was his partner, I was supposed to have his back, yet on the contrary I was leaving him out, running away all the time and not actually working on this together with him.

"Hey, Em, I'm sorry." Even though I knew my actions were wrong, my apology wasn't very apologetic. Emmett was very forgiving person but now he glared at me and fell into his chair.

Only after a moment of silence he spoke.

"I stopped by the house to talk to Esme." we went on foot to the diner and the house was on the outskirts of the city, nowhere near the station, Emmett, most likely following Jasper's advice, gave me time to get myself together. I was sure Jasper was in the station in case I decided to do something stupid, but thankfully I was yet to attack Paul. "She took a look at the antique necklace and determined that it was one of the more modest, smaller pieces of Victorian era - an onyx eye framed in silver. Though, the swan on the back, even if not seen while the piece is worn, decreases its value by half. It's ridiculous."

"It is." I slumped. The mention of a tiny little swan cut in silver reminded me of a different Swan, the one Swan I desperately tried to banish from my thoughts, but there she still was, torturing me with her large questioning eyes. I closed my own eyes feeling the upcoming imminent headache.

"You should have shower and have some sleep. You look like you haven't slept for days." I didn't, not really. I couldn't sleep very well because even my dreams were plagued by the reminiscences of the crude reality. I wasn't usually the one who left in the midst of a case yet this time I listened to Emmett, well, at least to the part of leaving the office.

When I left the office, I wasn't sure where I was going. The shower and the change of clothes didn't seem to help me feel humane and later that night I found myself driving in endless circles around Seattle, unable to break the pattern of my not-so-cheerful thoughts.

* * *

 _It was still early spring but the grass has already recovered some of its greenery. On the contrary, the trees still lacked their leafage, which made the vast cemetery look even larger. Six men in police uniforms carried a casket toward a gaping hole in the ground - the scene so familiar, yet so foreign. As the coffin was being lowered into the ground a rope supporting it snapped and the box accommodating the dead on its trip to the other side slipped and shattered into little pieces. Despite the fluster of people, I could see the face of the deceased and that was not the one of my father, it was another man. Quiet sobs behind me caused me to spin around in dizzying speed and face the tiny girl that broke down on the still cold and slightly frosted ground._

 _I extended my still boyish little hand to her, touching her shoulder gently to get her attention as the chaos around us continued. She lifted her eyes - a sea of hot chocolate - for just a second before she jumped into my embrace._

I was officially insane. I woke up in my car and, even though I was still a little disoriented, I realized I was down the street from the secured apartment. I sighted, I couldn't go there. Well, I could, the more correct term would be _shouldn't_.

I turned my car around and drove in the opposite direction. After parking the car in my reserved space I ran up 4 flights of stairs to my apartment - it was a small, functional space that, to Esme's dismay, lacked the touch of a woman. Though, I liked my mancave - it was a clean, non-personalized and I could clear my head here almost always (except last night, apparently). I walked into the bathroom, threw my cold-sweat soaked clothes into the laundry basket and stepped under the stream of cold shower. As it washed away the remainings of sleepiness, I turned the water mixer to the other side to relax my tense muscles.

Ten minutes or so later, I was out of the shower, dressed and sitting in front of a cup of coffee, a bowl of milkless cereal and a week-old newspaper. Of course, the news about the pulsing city were out of date, but it was a nice way to pretend to pass early morning in a manner that most people considered casual, normal. I didn't even subscribe to a newspaper so it was most likely stolen from one of my neighbors.

Old or new, stolen or whatever, by the time I finished my modest breakfast, I had scanned through the newspaper too - it held nothing particularly interesting so I threw it in the trashbin and after washing up the dishes I left for the office again. That night, I knew, I would be on a surveillance of the warehouse but up until then I could torture myself with the load of unanswered questions and the image of a pretty brunette.


	8. Chapter 7: Immobile

**A/N: Hello hello, apologies for a long hiatus are in order. The summer was _crazy_ , meaning I had little to no time to write, though, I'm coming back with new chapters now. Hopefully, this complicated detective story will interest you. As always, I would appreciate any and all reviews - it's my first story and I'm still learning.**

 **I was given a question about the dreams of Edward and Bella - yes, they are important, they are manifestations of their sub-consciousness, their deepest feelings and a way for their brain to analyze some facts that seem impossible to process while awake.**

 **I do not own Twilight.**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Seven**

 **Immobile**

When I came to the station I was both surprised to see Seth chatting with another young cop, one I didn't recognize.

"Seth, what are you doing here?" I approached him.

"We're in rotation. It's Embry's turn." Seth explained.

"Gotta go, Seth." the other cop bid his farewell. "My partner's here." With those words he left us to have a private conversation.

"How is she?"

"Tired, a little on edge, good cook."

"Seth, you're becoming Emmett two-point-oh." I rolled my eyes.

"Hey, it's not that bad in that fancy office of yours. It's not like I'm forcing her to slave in the kitchen. I bet she'd cook more if department would send us groceries instead of takeouts." He might have been right: some people did tend to stress-cook and Bella was certainly in a sanity-challenging situation.

"Hey, if you don't mind, I'm going home." Seth yawned. "She's a restless sleeper - trashing, sleep-talking, screaming - all, except walking, included. And I was waiting for a shift change for way too long." I winced at his comment but he didn't notice that as I waved him off.

I slipped into my office seemingly unnoticed by the cops in the cubicles. Emmett wasn't in, so I just launched my computer and dug out those other torture-and-kill cases from Arizona and California. They were just as evidence-lacking as the files of the Tanner family and Chief Swan. On the other hand, there was something interesting about the couple that was killed in Los Angeles. Marissa and Joe Suttons were elders, who stayed in a small room of the retirement home, where just behind thin walls others lived. The woman was beaten and shot, the man was full-on tortured until his old heart gave out and the room was trashed, but no one heard or seen anything. The most important fact was that Joe Sutton was a retired detective.

Joe Sutton had a long and successful career, he closed a lot of cases, but very little of them were computerized which meant another dead end. Yet, I believed that whatever got him killed was an unsolved case that plagued the man even after his job in the force was done, so I decided to call the retirement home that the Suttons stayed in.

Only if that was as easy as it sounded. The facility went bankrupt and closed down three months after the killings. The landlines were disconnected, though the land owner's mobile phones were still included in the Sutton file.

I dialed.

"Who is this?" A rough man's voice answered.

"This is detective Edward Cullen with the Seattle Police department. Am I talking to Gregory Lewis?"

"What do you want?" my polite approach and rank didn't seem to change his attitude towards me.

"I would like to ask a few questions about the Suttons' murder in the retirement home." Emmett came into the office at that moment and I raised my finger to make sure he kept silent. He sat down and continued listening to me speak.

"I know nothin'" Gregory retorted angrily, his speech slurred.

"Has Joe Sutton ever talked about his police days, any cases that he didn't manage to close?" I still tried.

"I told you I know nothin'." There was some gurgling sound on the other side of the phone. A drink? This Gregory guy was most likely drunk or very hangover. "Bother Sally with your dumb questions." my hands clenched at his ignorance - lives were lost and I didn't care about him disrespecting me but those dead people deserved justice."

"How do I contact Sally?"

"I thought you're th'cop." He hang up and I sighted.

"New lead?" Emmett raised an eyebrow.

"It's from the murders that shared similarities. In LA one of the killed was a retired cop. He was also tortured and killed in the middle of retirement home."

"Dang that age-related hearing loss." Emmett punched the table. " No evidence?"

"And no witnesses. I am trying to figure out if Joe Sutton had some unfinished business that he might have pushed too far. Where were you?"

"We were planning tonight's party." Emmett said happily - researching was part of our both job, but Emmett was restless and loved action. I have actually no idea why he chose to become a policemen/detective and not a firefighter, though, I'm happy. The station was the place he met my sister and made her happy and less bitchy and also he was a great partner as he always put up with me.

"What's the plan?"

"We let them do what they do and catch them red-handed, obviously. Actually, we analyzed the plans a little better and the surveillance team took some pictures. There's actually only one way in and out. The windows are too high and the ventilation system is impossible to cross which leaves only the front door. Stupid, if you ask me."

"And yet they have been doing this for years under everyone's noses."

"Well, their days are over." Emmett waggled his eyebrows.

"You're certainly happy today."

"Rose..." oh dear, I didn't need that picture.

"Blah, blah, blah. Better get me a new lead. I'm trying to track down Sally. She must have worked in the retirement home."

Indeed she did and Sally was much more pleasant to talk to. She was the activity coordinator and ran a chat group. According to her, during that chat group elders could relive their glory days, discuss their fears, spill their sorrows. Joe wasn't the touchy/feely type, Sarah said, but from time to time he liked to spice things up and share an action-packed story or an urban legend which led us back to the Volturi trio. When I asked Sally about any files that he might have kept, I was told he had a black leather journal, which, according to my further research, was not recovered from the scene of the murder. I also learned that both Marissa and Joe enjoyed gardening and reading. I was not sure, how those things were going to help me but at that point Sally was just naming random facts about the couple that she could remember. All in all, the woman was as helpful and as informative as she could and I was thankful for her cooperation. It might not necessarily been a breakthrough but it wasn't a complete waste - that kind of confirmed some kind of Volturi involvement because both dead cops were somewhat obsessed with the secret organization.

The missing journal nagged me, though. The room was such a mess that there was no way to tell what happened first - the ransacking or the torturous murder. Trashing the place is a risk for the violator - extending time in the insecure environment and a possibility of leaving evidence. Was it turned upside down because the victims died before giving the killer what he wanted or were they tortured because the killer didn't find what he was looking for? If the latter was true, was there a chance that the journal was safely hidden somewhere else on the property of the retirement home.

Questions, questions, questions... My theories made Emmett's big head hurt, but not before he found new insights into another clue in Chief Swan's file.

"Those guns," he showed me a picture," are from a bust here in Seattle. Six months ago a load of stolen military grade guns was intercepted by the police. The guns were on their way to the police storage when they were stolen again. They never resurfaced."

"An inside job."

"Yeah, but none of the names match the two-letter combos." he shook his head. "Maybe we are looking at this wrong."

"We can't be sure of anything but the fact that we have dirty cops amongst us. Who's working the warehouse."

"I know all the guys and their families well, They don't raise any flags."

"Dig deeper. When do we have to head out?"

"4 at the back exit. We want to be early."

True to Emmett's word, sharp at 4 the "warehouse team" was ready to leave in a rented truck. Both us and the SWAT team were armed to the teeth in case anything went wrong. Generally, we just didn't know what to expect which was a bit unnerving.

We reached the place in a bit less than 30 minutes. Our truck drove inside to unload its cargo - no one could have suspected that the cargo in question were officers of the law who were all anxious about the upcoming few hours. We all had to wait, to observe our surroundings and to hope that our enemies would show up for the drop or whatever was happening in that place.

Once we were all set in place I took a post by one of the windows. The view was plain - it was just that part of the town that was not visited unless you worked here in a factory or a warehouse or were in transportation business.

I usually had enough patience for surveillance but this time seemed different. I felt as if I would have been doing more if I stayed in the office but I also knew that I could run back and forth between the contents of Swan's file in my head, I certainly already knew it well enough. Yet, this mental freedom brought out something I was afraid to think about all day.

My resolve to not visit the girl was waning. I felt the same heartache I felt that morning when Seth said that she screamed and trashed in her sleep. I remember when that was me. Only I wasn't alone. People could make things worse, but sometimes all you needed was them -a family which she didn't have. Carlisle was there for me when I would wake up from my nightmares. He wouldn't speak, he would just take my hand and hold it until I calmed down, until I started breathing normally and fell asleep. I wanted to do that for her, to provide a shelter from pain, from nightmares. Yet, deep down inside I knew that she wouldn't be truly safe or could enjoy her life until the ones who destroyed it in the first place would get what they deserved.

And they would. I would make sure of that.

It was just before 8 when two black sedans drove up to the warehouse. They drove inside just like we did before, which meant that we didn't see who was involved. We gave them time to settle, to start their business and then we approached and breached the door.

The rest happened quickly.

We saw 4 figures in front of us.

Then everything went into air.

The blast of an explosion sent me and my men back on the pavement.

My ears ringed like hell. Smoke and dust were everywhere and I couldn't see much, but what I could see was spinning and flowing. My body refused to work with me but I managed to lift myself up slightly.

Then there was another explosion, and yet another. The sound was ear-splitting

Through the ringing I heard shouts and screams. The team? I couldn't focus. I collapsed on the ground and lay there, immobile, until darkness conquered my vision.


	9. Chapter 8: Mistrust

**A/N: Life is crazy. I wrote this sometime in August and in September when I thought my shedule was more regular (or rather planned out) and I could post more, I was hit by a truckload of work. I already have a few more chapters written, I just need to re-read, spell-check and all that jazz, so most likely they will be up soon too (hopefully).**

 **I do not own Twilight.**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Eight**

 **Mistrust**

"Edward!"

There was a very, very annoying screeching sound.

"Edward, wake up!"

Someone slapped my face.

"Edward!"

"Emm?" I opened my eyes to see my brother-in-law and my partner looking at me with a scared expression. I tried to sit up. Oh _hell_ , everything was spinning. "What happened?"

"A trap. They were ready to blow us away."

"The team?"

"Everyone's fine. The SWAT guys' have better costumes than us and you were standing as close to the explosion as they were."

"There were three."

"Both cars."

"Oh crap, here goes the evidence. Those four?"

"Missing. SFD didn't find bodies but found a tunnel beneath the building."

"How the hell did we not know about this?" I shouted at Emmett

"It's not part of the original building. Must be a novel modification."

I managed to stand up on my feet. My body was hurting as if I had been in a nasty fight and lost, but I had to get going. I had to. Those bastards were not going to get away.

"Whoa, whoa, where do you think you're going?"

"The warehouse. I need to take a look."

"SFD still working on the fire." Emmett put his arms on my shoulders and pushed me back down on the pavement. "Sit, you're hurt."

"No, I'm fine." I protested. I felt like a child and, hell, the parental role didn't suit Emmett. I pushed back Emmett's hand and tried to get up again, but was stopped by someone else."

"You should sit. You might have a head trauma." A paramedic - I think I met him before on a case and he said his name was Tony - was instructing me.

"I have a job to do." I argued.

"Your job blew up. Now sit because your father will have my head if you injure yourself even more."

And then they tended me. I hated that. They were wasting time and time was of the essence. I did my best to get out of the trip to the hospital but Emmett the Traitor was on their side. Multiple tests and scans later they had to agree that I was fine and the only things I was suffering from was the ear-ringing and the bruising all over my body which was the case with everyone on our side.

Against Carlisle's wishes, my assigned doctor agreed to let me out that same night.

My car was still at the precinct so I took a filthy and unpleasant taxi ride back to my apartment where I went straight to the shower. My body was battered, my muscles ached and the shower didn't help. I took some leftover painkillers that I still had from the time I was shot and downed it with a coffee. Another taxi ride later I was at the precinct, picking up my car and going to the warehouse.

The streets were almost empty at that time of night so I reached my destination in no time. Men from fire department and a team of CSIs were working on the scene. I flashed my badge and went past the "STOP" line.

"Shouldn't you be at home, resting."A warm, familiar voice of Angela Webber greeted me. "I heard you almost blew up."

"Almost being the key word."

She rolled her eyes at me and I just shook my head.

"What do you have for me?"

"Nothing I haven't already said to your brother." I gave her a dirty look and she continued. "The cars seem to be a bust. We'll tow it to the garage to make sure we didn't miss anything. Plates are stolen from long-unused cars that rot in some scrap metal yard. The firemen are working on clearing out the escape tunnel - they blew it up too."

"What was in there that the building caught on fire?"

"Not everything is checked yet. There were some highly-flammable materials upstairs, though."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Emmett's voice split the air.

"Working, same as you. Doctors cleared me."

Emmett was shaking his head "You wouldn't be you if you weren't here."

"What exploded?"

"There was some kind of device. We think it was set off remotely, but we are still gathering the pieces and it will need further inspection. I can tell you only very general things now so you'll have to wait."

"Forward anything you have straight to us, ok?"

"As always. One of these days you'll have to buy me a drink for all the priority tests I have to run for you." She winked at me in a friendly manner.

"See, you just have to call her.." I punched him in the shoulder before he finished.

"She's just a friend."

* * *

I slept on the office couch that night and when I woke up I regretted that decision. My body was stiff and hurting as I stretched.

"Morning, sunshine." Emmett said with fake cheerfulness. "You crashed somewhere between playing with the tattoo symbols and and actually getting something done."

"Yep." That was another fruitless night of work. "You've slept?"

"A bit. CSIs started sending in preliminary reports."

"Anything about the explosives?"

"They found the trigger in the tunnel that was used for escaping. The bomb was C-4 based, though, neither the trigger or the bomb fragments had any signature details or something."

Our conversation was cut short by the knock on the door. _Oh, great,_ I thought when I saw who knocked. It was Eleazar and two others. The one closest to Eleazar was a short child-faced girl with spiky raven-black hair, behind her stood a tall blond man who seemed to have a constant scowl. Both of them wore slick black suits. _Feds,_ the suits screamed.

Eleazar let himself in and immediately started the introductions. "Morning." he wasn't happy and neither were we." Detective Edward Cullen, Detective Emmett McCarty, please meet SSA Alice Brandon and SSA James Hunter. Play nice." Eleazar left us to get acquainted with our new _friends_.

"What brings you here?" I was trying to be nonchalant. I knew exactly why they were here and I didn't want their intrusion.

"I think you're aware, Mr. Cullen." James was smiling slyly. "We're looking for a killer for hire, you're looking for him too."

"We were alerted that a cop requested information about a case from out of state, a few out of states actually, and we found out that he was working on a similar fresh case here." The girl explained and James guy gave her a warning look which she answered with an annoyed look of her own.

"We heard you received a file from the deceased and then you almost exploded." I so didn't like the guy. "Where is it?"

"We want to know what you know first." I pushed.

"I'm sure you will enjoy your holiday then." James step towards my desk and I rose to my feet, my hands were clenched into fists - I so wanted to punch the guy.

"Hey." Emmett interceded. "Who's more likely to give you something and not get anything in return? We are. Now spill what you know and the file is yours."

"Fine. The bureau didn't make the connection until you started digging. It has it's differences but the cases seem similar. We looked closer. We think someone is working for hire because there's not really a connection between the victims - singles, couples, families, men, women, nothing similar about the looks, just the way they were killed." James gave a speech.

"So you know nothing." Emmett's disappointment was audible.

"Two of them were cops." I watched both feds intently for anything out of the ordinary, any recognition of what I was talking about.

"And cops are known to make enemies." James was petulant.

"We didn't find a connection between them: different ages, states, schools, teachers, cases. Nothing in common except the occupation." Volturi in common, I wanted to correct little pixie, but refrained.

"Now. The file, please."

I huffed and disgruntled went to open the safe. I pulled out the file and handed it to James who sported a winner's grin.

"We need to talk to the relative of the last victim. Take us to her." James was giving orders and his egocentrism and power-loving tendencies pushed my buttons.

"She has no idea what's going on." I tried to keep him away from the girl. There was just something predatory about him. Predatory was good in our line of work but this time it just seemed wrong, as if giving him access to her was the same as putting her in danger.

"I think bureau has different interrogation techniques." He proceeded out of my office indicating for me to follow him.

Emmett turned away from the door and towards me and taken aback whispered. "Interrogation? You didn't give him the whole file, did you?"

I shook my head slightly and that caused Emmett to grin mischievously. "Good."

"See you later, Emm."

* * *

The two feds and I drove to the safehouse in silence. James was studying the file while Alice tried studying it over his shoulder from the back seat of my Volvo.

Alice was quite a creature. Her child-like looks didn't compare to her strong woman temper. However, I had to admit that she looked ridiculous bickering with James about seating arrangements especially since James completely ignored and shot her down. I didn't think they were working together for long or liked each other for that matter.

We rode the elevator to the right floor and when we knocked on the door, Seth opened.

"Hey, Cullen." Seth greeted me wary of my companions.

"SSA Hunter and SSA Brandon." I introduced them.

"FBI?" A shocked voice came from the other side of the room. There she stood with a steaming cup in one hand and a book in another. Her face looked different from the last time I saw her: she was pale and tired then but now she just looked like a ghost. Dark shadows under her eyes accentuated the pasty color of her face, her long hair were in a messy, low-maintenance bun and she was in oversized clothing that made her look even thinner than she was.

Her hands shook as she lowered the mug to the coffee table level and placed with a ting on the glass surface.

"Are there any news?"

"We think it was a hitman's job." James started and Bella stared at him like she just saw a ghost.

"Who would do that?" she recollected herself.

"We don't know."

And then he started. He sat her down on the sofa and started asking questions one after another, some of them she already answered to me, some of them I handled differently - James wasn't trying to keep her calm and answering, he pushed her and neither me or Alice could stop his questioning. I noticed that Bella's answers didn't sound as sincere as they were when she was with me, when she allowed herself to be vulnerable to a certain degree. It was different when she broke down too: she screamed out a plea to James and stormed out into another room - the bedroom.

James wanted to follow and so did Alice, but probably for the first time since we met he listen to my reasoning and allowed me to handle the delicate woman in the other room.

I knocked softly on the door of her room and entered without waiting for an invitation.

"Bella, I'm sorry." she was laying on the bed, hiding her face in the pillow and ignoring me. The only sound coming from her were light sniffles. I went closer to the bed and tried again. "Bella, please, talk to me."

"Please, tell me they're not taking over the investigation." she whispered when she turned to face me. Her face and eyes had a tint of red from crying, she looked desperate.

"They can try." I gave her my best reassuring confident smile, but it wasn't very convincing, she frowned, a crease formed between her eyebrows as she watched me, observed me in my moment of indecision. Entering the bedroom I thought I knew how to proceed, now I wasn't that sure, we just stayed in an uncomfortable silence until she patted the bed next to her inviting me to sit.

"I'm scared." she whispered and I looked up at her. _God, help me_ , I thought as I lifted my hand to brush away the tear that was running down her cheek. It was such an intimate, intrusive moment. My hand fell from her face.

"I know you are, Bella."

"I don't know who to trust."

"You can trust me." I captured her eyes with mine as I tried to communicate my devotion to the case, to her father and most importantly to her.

"You brought them." Her voice was empty and a shadow of fear and insecurity crossed her chocolate eyes.

"Bella, what's wrong? What are you not telling me." I urged her feeling the tension in the room build.

She leaned towards me, her lips were close to my ear as she whispered. "I've seen that man before. In Forks. He was involved with Victoria, that red-haired girl in the file." she withdrew from me as soon as he finished the sentence.

It explained why she was whispering and I didn't blame her for not trusting the man or me for that matter. I barely met him and I sensed that something was wrong with him and she actually saw him with one of the potential victims or even a person of interest.

"Involved?"

"They were making out on the hood of an old black car in the parking lot by the grocery store." she lowered her eyes shyly. "My car was parked next to theirs." There was a hint of disgust in her words.

"You met him face to face?" this was bad.

"No, I waited out in the store till they left. I didn't feel like witnessing that from up close." I almost chuckled at her expression. Oh, how refreshingly innocent she was.

"Are you sure it was him?"

"My vision is perfect, thank you." She gave it a second thought. " At first, when I came out of the shop I heard her call him James. What's that man's name?"

"James." I almost growled and stood. "I'll tell them you're not in the mood to talk anymore and bring you your book and your tea. I'll come back later, without them." I promised.

"Be safe." she whispered letting me out of the room.

* * *

 **A/N: As always, feedback is very welcome.**


	10. Chapter 9: Under Investigation

**A/N: Hello, thank you all for all the attention and support. It's a pleasure to read your reviews, they encourage me to move forward. For those who asked about my posting schedule, I want to say that I will do my best to post weekly but I can't make any promises. As I have already written before, the chapters that I am putting up now were written back in August and I hoped that after all the summer traveling and work I would be able to keep to a schedule, but not everything always works the way someone wants it to. Back to the present times, I think a chapter a week is a steady and doable rate considering the fact that this is my very first story, English is not my primary language and I have to keep up with my studies too. Although, if possible, I will post more often.**

 **Also, after I reread my first chapters I noticed that even after fixing it before uploading, I still left some mistakes (some of them are due to said editing because sometimes by switching something up you can make a mess and when you read the text for a millionth time that day, you just stop noticing), so sometime soon I will try to fix them and re-upload some of the chapters. Also, if you notice a language-related mistake (spelling, grammar, punctuation, random word, unfinished word, an unused/unnatural word combination or whatever else), please point it out to me in the reviews or PM, it will be greatly appreciated.**

 **I hope you'll enjoy chapter 9!**

 **I do not own Twilight.**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Nine**

 **Under Investigation**

"We have a problem. A very very big problem." I was walking back and forth in my living room

"Sit." Emmett pushed me to the sofa and handed me a cup of tea. Tea? He was crazy if he thought I was going to drink chamomile tea which sat in my cupboard for unknown reason. I went to the sink, emptied the cup and poured myself some coffee which only earned a sigh from Emmett.

"That James guy is involved in something. I don't trust him. When we were at Bella's, she tried to act normal until she went into a fit and hid in her bedroom. I followed her to try to calm her down and she told me that she saw him making out with Victoria Adams in Forks."

"Whoa. Isn't he a bit too old for her?" I rolled my eyes.

"Seriously?! that's what you take from what I told you?"

"Of course not. Is the FBI chick in the same bed?" he became serious again

"I don't know. I don't think Bella does either." SSA Alice Brandon was a mystery. She could be working with James and pretending to hate his guts in order to gain our trust in case anything happened with James or she could be suspecting him of being dirty. Or she could just despise him because of how he's treating her. All of those theories were equally probable.

"How much did you give him?"

"Just the copy of Chief's original file. No tattoo pictures, no research results, he didn't ask for them." I smiled mischievously." The original casefile is locked up, but I made and hid more copies in case of accidental or non-accidental destruction."

"This is so messed up, man."

"I know. We need to get to the station before anyone starts asking questions."

"Oh no, I was out during lunchtime." Emm mocked me slightly providing us with a story for our disappearance.

"We'd better stop by a drive-through then." I winked at my always hungry brother-in-law and saw his face bright up at the mention of food.

* * *

"The raven is coming, the raven is coming." Emmett said in a low, mechanical voice. I looked up to see the pixie coming towards our office. She stormed in without stopping to knock.

"Is there any computer I could use in this building?" she was furious.

"Didn't you bring your own tech?" I asked.

"James doesn't like to share." she whined like a little child.

"How long have you two been working together?" smooth Emmett, smooth.

"Less than a two months." she huffed and dropped onto the couch. "I understand why everyone is avoiding him like plague at the office. His three previous partners: one dead, one out of the bureau and one pleaded for demotion."

I shared a look with Emmett: is she playing us or is she being honest?

"Why are you assigned with him?" I asked.

"My partner retired." she said sadly. "So, where do I get a computer?"

"IT department is a floor down." I sent her off on a computer hunt.

"And I thought you had issues." Emmett laughed.

"Go to hell, Emmy." He hated being called Emmy, which was what his parents did to this day when they came for a visit from Tennessee.

"If I would go to hell you wouldn't learn I might have tracked down the antique necklace. Laurent Adams purchased it in a charity auction for which it was gifted by someone called Phil Dwyer."

"Phil Dwyer?! As in the businessman who married Bella's mother Renee who disappeared in Europe about 7 months ago?"

"I did not see that one coming." Emmett retorted a little shocked by my sudden lively movements by the desk.

"I'll take the picture when I'll go to see Bella, ask if she recognizes the piece."

"You're going sweet on her, Eddie."

"If I send you to hell now, will I lose any substantial information?" I raised an eyebrow at him and when he failed to produce an answer I answered my own question, "I don't think so."

* * *

I worked on discreetly digging out the dirt about James Hunter. Despite my animosity with most federal agents , there was someone inside bureau who could help me and should want to help me since she owed me her life. I worked with Tanya Denali once and that was more than enough as she was the most flirtatious woman on the surface of Earth and she ignored all rejections. Desperate times asked for desperate measures, so I contacted her.

No more than two hours later I received an encrypted file that was a true mine of gold. There were backgrounds for both agents that were under this roof at the moment.

James Hunter was quite a character. What Alice told us was the truth, James' partners never stayed with him for long, he closed cases regularly and at a steady rate, he was a frequent visitor of the FBI psychiatrist's office but he always passed the evaluations and as of lately he was being investigated by the bureau and Alice was on the investigation team.

Upon mention of investigation, I couldn't see much more. He knew where the girl was, which meant that she was in danger.

I wrote a note: The old foresthouse at 7. Tell Jasper, get Alice, LOSE JAMES. I gathered my stuff and handed the note to Emmett who was silently looking at the file, searching for something new. Before leaving the building I made sure James was put and no one was following me.

Soon enough I was in front of the apartment doorstep. Seth was still on duty but the shifts were about to change soon.

"Seth," I greeted him for the second time that day. He locked the door behind me.

"What's wrong?"

"The FBI have a mole," I needed Seth to understand, "which means she's not safe. We can't change the assignments without them learning so she's coming with me. I might call you with a new location sometime in the next 12 to 24 hours. Once we leave, stay until the shift change and then leave with whoever comes to change you. Do you understand?"

"Yes. She's in her room."

"Did she leave the room at all today?"

"Yeah, she fixed up some sandwiches for both of us." he grinned pleased. "Though, she barely ate any of that."

I knocked on her door and this time waited for her to call me in.

"Come in." her voice sounded shaky, unsure.

"Bella." I acknowledged her and tiny light appeared in her eyes, tension left her body and she brought the arm that she was holding behind her back to the front of her body. That movement caught my eye and after a moment of silence I voiced my observation with curiosity. "What are you hiding behind your back?" She pulled out an utility knife. I had mixed feelings about this: she could have hurt herself but at the same time, if she was in danger, she would have had a chance to defend herself and I also loved her strong spirit. I sighed. "You could have hurt yourself," but before she started explaining herself, apologizing or doing something else I added, "keep it, just be careful."

"I am. Are you alone?"

"It's only me and Seth, but not for long. You need to pack what you have, we're leaving."

"I'm ready," she said. "I figured that if my senses were right, I wouldn't be staying here for long."

"You never cease to surprise me." I smiled. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised knowing your dad was a cop."

I grabbed a duffel bag, she grabbed her backpack and we left the apartment. The odds were in our favor since the building had underground parking and there were less observation points from which we could have been watched. I told Bella to take the back seat as the windows there were blackened. We drove a few circles to make sure we didn't have a tail before driving to the foresthouse.

The foresthouse was an old abandoned Norwegian style hut which the family knew because we hiked plenty in the surrounding forests. It was a great starting or ending point for a trip and we used it often enough but it was in no other way associated with the family, hence being untraceable by normal bureau means.

"That's a 180 from the last place." Bella was surprised and I understood. The one-story wooden house was hidden by the forest, the grass that covered the roof camouflaged it even more as it made the house blend in with the hill. "How did you find this place?"

"My family hikes. We know more places like this but others are further away from the city and we are waiting for guests."

"Well, it's not very guest-friendly." She inspected the inside of the house. There was an old heavy bed that my mother Esme fixed up and covered with new linens and blankets, an oval coffee table made out of the same dark and heavy wood as the bed, a dusty armchair in the corner, the joined kitchen had oldschool wood-burning stove that doubled as a heater and a line of cupboards which we stocked with water, non-perishable food and basic med-supplies. We also had some hidden drugs. They were hidden so that Carlisle could sleep well at night knowing that he didn't have to worry that someone might stumble upon this place, get the drugs and possibly overdose.

"Am I staying here?" she sat down on the bed as if to test it out.

"I'm not sure yet."

I heard a car in the distance, I withdrew my gun and approached the window. It was almost sunset and the forest made it even darker and harder to see, especially with the headlights shining in my eyes, but when the car turned I knew it belonged to Emmett. He hopped out of his big man's SUV alone and stomped towards the hut.

I relaxed. "It's Emmett, my partner." I warned Bella before she pulled a knife on him. "You haven't met him yet."

He entered the building and grabbed his gun from the holster, pointing it at the girl who just raised her arms in defeat.

"Would you really shoot a civilian?"

"You're Bella, aren't you?" Emmett went for a handshake. "Emmett McCarty, Edward's partner in crime fighting."

"So I heard."

Emmett raised an eyebrow, closed the distance between us, and whispered. "What did you say to that girl?"

"Your name, Emmy." I whispered back. "Where's Jazz? And Alice?" I asked loud enough for Bella to hear Alice was coming too and that sent her into a coughing fit.

"Are you ok?" I went into a care-taker mode which I witnessed often enough when I was around Carlisle. Having a doctor as a father could be a pain in the ass but it was also very beneficial as I learned many great medical things which could definitely save mine or someone else's life one day.

"Yeah. Why is she coming? She's _his_ partner!"

"I have info that she's his partner because feds are investigating him. We need her on our side." Bella shrank slightly and I sat in front of her on the coffee table so that she could not ignore me. "Hey, no one will hurt you."

"It's not myself I'm afraid for." It was so soft, almost inaudible, but I heard it and her worry for our safety made my heart melt. Or was the worry actually her guilt for putting us in a dangerous situation. It was hard to make out her feelings but one way or another she though too much of others and too little of herself.

Thinking our conversation was over Emmett laughed. "Jasper has actually asked her out for drinks. He went all romance on her in front of James. I'm sure he's taking precautions in some kind of bar."

"Who's Jasper?" Bella wondered, looking at me for answers.

"My brother and a fellow cop."

"Your whole family is in the business of life-saving and protecting?" That was something inbetween a question and a statement.

"Almost." our chat was interrupted by the sound of another vehicle. This one was easier to recognize as Jasper's car had additional headlights that were one of a kind.

This time, two people climbed out of the car and came inside.


	11. Chapter 10: The Hut

**I do not own Twilight.**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Ten**

 **The Hut**

"So I guess you know about James." Alice didn't waste her time.

"Apparently, I need an update." Jasper was out of the loop - it wasn't secure to talk to him about this at the station or somewhere around even if we had the "just-talking-to-my-brother(-in-law)" excuse. In addition, Jasper had his own workload to handle which wasn't easy since the heads of the department recognized his capabilities and used it to its fullest.

"Didn't miss much. James is dirty. I haven't reviewed the file yet though, I had to make sure Bella," I motioned towards the girl on the bed with one hand," was safe." Jasper spun around to see Alice, I could see a touch of mistrust and disappointment in his eyes.

"I'm investigating James. He actually flew in here a day before, without assignment and I followed. He doesn't trust me, he berates me everyday and so I started treating him just like he treats me." Alice let out a sigh which only indicated how tired she actually was of her dynamic with James." It might be not ideal as he might not learn to trust me or give me anything without thinking, but it's sure fun to have him on his toes."

"Any progress on his associates? Or why he's in Seattle and so interested in our case?" Emmett leaned against the windowsill.

"Should we be discussing this it in front of her?" Jasper was always the strategist, the rational thinker who weighed all options before proceeding.

"I'm in the room you know." There was this edge to Bella's voice that said not to play games or put on children gloves with her but her overall vulnerable look made her temper look almost comical. "And I can help. Or at least try to help make sense of that horrendous file." Her determination was similar to my own.

"It's dangerous." Jasper's tone was grave, bordering threatening.

"Bella's right. She can help. She was the one who actually confirmed my suspicions about James and she knew," I barely stopped myself from saying the victim, "Charlie and might be able to see from his point of view or point out things like what happened with James in Forks." And I filled them in on our conversation in the bedroom of the safehouse.

"Is that what you were whispering about? I thought you were going all sweet on her." Alice laughed and I glared at her. Seriously? I wasn't "all sweet" on Bella as everyone seemed to be pointing out lately. Yes, I did go a little soft with this girl - I still remembered how my fingers burned after I brushed off Bella's tears back there - but she was just so alone and so lost... I was uncomfortable under the scrutinizing gazes of my family and colleagues and I suddenly realized that it was a great idea to get the woodburning stove going.

"Might I remind you she's a minor." I shut the topic as I went on to prepare the fire. I could see in my peripheral vision that the the redness of Bella's face deepened.

"No, I'm not." my head snapped back up and my eyes met her fierce ones before she retracted into her shell of shyness. "Not as of the other day." She reminded me a fact I actually remembered, but I needed something to close that subject and her reaction to my methods made me feel like an asshole.

"Oh, if I had known, I would have brought a cake!" Alice's cheerfulness made the tension dissipate. "Happy birthday!" the hyperactive woman in a black stylish suit jumped towards the other girl in the room and gave her a hug. It was quite a scene - the pixie was happy and smiling as Bella was clearly puzzled and a bit uncomfortable with such behavior of a practical stranger.

"I believe we'll have to settle for some tea and non-perishables." I pointed out as I poured some water into a pot to get it boiling.

"Shall we start working?" Apparently, two things could turn Alice hyper - parties and work.

"You sure you want to be here?" Jasper was giving Bella the hard shoulder, evaluating her again as they were having a small staring contest. She didn't falter and just answered him with strong "I am sure,"

"Let's spread those files out." Alice started turning the room into a full on not-so-white white-board room.

* * *

There was one thing that I was sure of - green tea didn't have enough caffeine in it.

We put our heads together and worked deep into the night. It was revealing but still mentally tiring. The file I received from Tanya Denali contained everything that Alice and her team managed to dig out over the last 4 months: James' lack of social interaction when he was who he pretended to be, his regular trips to Las Vegas, Seattle and LA and, most importantly, his apparent relationship with Victoria Adams or, according to an FBI file, Vicki Ross. There might not have been anything about them doing something in Washington state, but there were plenty of pictures and videos of them in Vegas. If we were right, he might have helped her with a human trafficking operation.

That led to another question and a very difficult conversation with Bella. She recognized the antique necklace that was found on the dead body of Cecilia Adams and told us that it was in family for years but she hasn't seen it since her mother remarried. Of course, she had to admit that she hasn't seen her mom much after the wedding either. The idea of Renee Dwyer becoming a trafficking victim swam in my head but at the same time it seemed illogical. Renee was good-looking and healthy, but she was 37 which wasn't a favourable age in such business. Another theory was that her new husband had a role in the criminal world and she became an issue or a leverage for someone. We all agreed to look into Phil Dwyer and his business once we had internet access - damn those woods.

Victoria also needed further investigation. That was being done by Alice's previous partner who, in truth, did not retire. I did have my doubts about anyone else on this, hell, I didn't really trust Alice completely, but I settled for now. I could always check it out myself.

Further on our plate was James' plans in Seattle. He arrived in Seattle 24 hours prior to coming to the station and had almost the whole day without Alice's supervision to do whatever he wanted. The only thing that was known about his day's activities was his return to the hotel which happened to be a few hours after the explosion, meaning he could have been one of the four escapees or involved with them in some other way.

The mention of explosive devices sent Bella into the panic attack. During the whole conversation I watched her carefully, making a mental note about her body language, facial expressions, the tone of her speech when she was talking, and most of the time she managed to control her emotions relatively quickly, hiding her fear, anxiety, hurt, but that last piece of information made her feelings erupt like a volcano. Alice seemed scared as her high spirits failed to infect, Jasper's soothing words were doomed by the cold treatment he previously gave the poor girl and Emmett just retreated to the corner as dealing with emotional woman that was not his wife was "not his cup of tea". That somehow ended in me pulling Bella to my embrace and gently caressing the small of her back as I whispered into her ear virtually the same words that Jasper said before.

How did I get to that situation? I didn't know, but it felt pleasant. I enjoyed holding her slender body close to mine as I felt her sobs subside and her breathing start leveling out. I held her for less than five minutes but it seemed like eternity. At the same time, it wasn't long enough. It was a moment of serenity in the eye of the hurricane - no one else existed, no one tried to intervene and burst our bubble of comfort. Nevertheless, it was one of the most unprofessional things I had ever done and a little piece of me believed that she sensed my hesitation which determined her decision to pull away from me and shrink into herself as if to make the distance between us greater.

"I'm sorry. We should go on, there's still so much to go through." It was mainly the information in her father's file and the bombing evidence which we very consciously skipped.

She did wondrously well afterwards. Jasper, well, fine, all of us, were positively flabbergasted by her insights into Chief Swan's life and the file. Charlie grew up and spent the majority of his life in Forks which meant he was familiar with the area and its stories, the symbolism in the local culture. He also had relations to most of the people in town or around the town.

Bella hasn't lived in Forks for long and she was not capable to explain everything culturally related to Forks but she managed to give us a starting point and she shed some light on someone who was mentioned in one of the documents. Apparently, Billy Black was Chief Swan's best friend and one of the elders of the Quileute tribal council. Billy's story was quite sad. He and his wife Sarah got into a car accident 15 years ago that resulted in the woman's death and man's paralysis. It also left a one-year-old boy motherless. The cause of the accident was reported to be a combination of a stray wild animal wandering out on the road and poor weather conditions. At least that was what Black said when he refused his crash to be investigated by the white-faced policemen, including young cop Charlie Swan.

Was Chief suspicious of his old friend's actions? Did he know something about the accident that we didn't? Or did he just put various unrelated things that bothered him into that case file? Since the accident was not investigated, no pictures and no notes about the scene and the vehicle existed which made any speculations impossible to confirm or deny. The fact that the accident happened 15 years ago was also disturbingly confusing - it didn't really fit in the time frame of the events we were looking into at the moment, but if it was related to the Volturi, anything could be possible as the gang was around for ages.

Also, if everything in that file was connected, why there were so many connections to Chief Swan and his family? Was the girl by my side telling everything she actually knew or was she hiding something? She didn't seem like she was good at lying but that could have been an act too. Though, this doubt of her honesty and good intentions seemed heart-stoppingly foreign in my mind. I did not want to believe that about Bella.

Yet, we still had another thing to process with our sleep and caffeine deprived brains - the explosion. When Alice started spreading the file on the table I was about to protest, remembering the previous emotional storm, but Bella had beaten me to the punch by asking if we were truly fine.

"Bella, I told you, apart from being heartbroken about the destroyed evidence, we were not harmed." My aching body contradicted that sentence but she didn't have to know that.

"Would you say anything but that if you were hurt, though?" She pressed the matter and my slowed down brains damned her observational skills. How can you not know something was happening with your family, Bella? Was Charlie as good at hiding things as she was at finding them?

Then a brilliant comeback came to my mind. "Yes, because I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be saying anything because my doctor of a father would have used my own handcuffs to cuff me to the hospital bed if I was hurt and uncooperative."

That sent Emmett laughing " I'll suggest that to him the next time you get yourself in trouble. I'm sure he will be pleased to have found the way to reign in his workaholic son. " Emmett was smirking at me mischievously, while everyone else laughed at my discomfort. There was nothing to busy myself with this time - the oven was lit, we had steaming cups of just made tea, there was no immediate danger... Thankfully, Jasper came to his senses and with one swift "we still have much to do" he brought everyone's focus back to the table.


	12. Chapter 11: Sleepless

**I do not own Twilight**

* * *

 **Light in the Darkness**

xxx

 **Chapter Eleven**

 **Sleepless**

About an hour later, we started collecting our papers. We all agreed that Alice needed to be brought back to the hotel before James got suspicious, although, truthfully, even if Alice could have stayed, we couldn't have gone on anymore. Neither one of us had time to rest before and we were barely functioning.

There was also another problem we had to face - Bella's placement. Our future plans were kind of pushed away while we worked but it was time to think what we were about to do. Alice immediately informed that no police safe-house was safe for Bella as James could get their addresses and check every single one of it if he wanted to do so. Mine or Emmett's place were the way too obvious choice and were eliminated also. Then there was the suggestion to stay in the cabin - it was a good place to hide, but the wilderness wouldn't work for a long-term stay.

Eventually, we agreed to wait until Alice gave us an "all clear" signal meaning that James was in their hotel and Bella and I would head back to the city and find a preferably clean and out of the way hotel for ourselves and in the morning I would ask Seth for a personal favour. After all, I was the lead detective on the case and I couldn't be in hiding while god knows how the investigation was going.

After bidding our farewells Bella and I were left in a slightly uncomfortable silence. She was sitting on the bed Buddha style and playing with the hem of her too large shirt as she, I presumed, avoided looking at me.

"How are you feeling?" I asked her cautiously, ready to comfort her in case of a breakdown. Why was I so eager to pull her back into my embrace? I shouldn't be feeling that way about the victim of a case I was working on.

She raised her deep brown eyes that had bruise like shadows underneath them. "I'm fine." No, she wasn't. "Just tired."

"Rest a little. We'll be here for at least another hour." I locked the door and moved towards the woodburner to put a new batch of logs in. I felt her eyes on me as I shuffled around the room lazily, but when I turned to her I saw her head fall against the wall as her eyelids drooped over her eyes. I sighed and approached her quietly. I gently, as if she was a glass doll, shifted her so that her head rested on the pillow and her body was in a horizontal position and pulled a duvet over her body. I wanted her to enjoy the moment of peace while it lasted.

Once I sat down nearby, Bella's heavy breathing and the rise and fall of her chest hypnotized me into a slumber of my own.

* * *

 _It was one of the clear and starry late August nights. The whole family was sitting around the blazing campfire enjoying a great day off our respective jobs. Rosalie's melodic laughter filled the air as she enjoyed her goofy husband's comedian nature._

 _The picture was almost idyllic, except for the annoying sound somewhere in the background. Like a film director I wanted to get rid of that sound, that distraction that turned that perfectly played scene into a blooper reel material. I stood up to investigate my surroundings. I tried going in all four directions, but I never got closer to the sound, it was just a constant until I heard someone to my side call me softly "Edward."_

 _When I turned to the person who tried to get my attention, I was faced with a set of exquisitely deep brown eyes._

I woke up to a very similar view. Bella was hovering over me, trying to wake me up. When my eyes fluttered open she increased the distance between us and extended her hand with a ringing phone that indicated the caller as Jasper.

I grabbed the phone and, upon answering, put it to my ear.

"Jazz" I acknowledged the person on the other side of the line.

"All is clear." The line went dead just moments later. I looked up to Bella who was already picking up her jacket. We gathered the rest of our things and left for my car in silence. Bella automatically approached the front passenger seat door and since I was just a few steps behind her I extended my arm to keep the door from opening.

"The backseat." I motioned and maneuvered around her to gentlemanly open the door. Even in the darkness I could see her pale cheeks start burning red. Her reactions were always priceless, most of the time written on her face in clear script, yet on some occasions she was still surprisingly difficult to read, as if she was a book written in a language that I could not fully understand.

After closing the doors I walked around the car and got in myself. We twisted and turned through the forest for five or so minutes until we reached the better road and I saw Bella relax her arm that clutched the front seat desperately.

Blind-searching for a hotel/hostel in a city where you lived most of your life is quite a difficult task. As a police officer, I knew which places to avoid as their addresses were constantly on the police radio because of weirdoes who stayed there and broke the law. Otherwise, I was quite lost. Eventually, after making multiple rounds of the safer Seattle areas we found a promising looking place.

It was a small family-run hotel that shared the four-story building with a corner-shop bakery and some private apartments. Another upside was its proximity to the police station and my apartment while still being further away from the places James' might visit. We got a third story room with the view of the street and it was close to the stairwell. Most of the space in the room was taken by the large king-sized double bed. Other than that, along one of the walls was a closet and a table under which a stool was hidden and on each sides of the bed were two nighttables. The bathroom was compact too but Bella seemed to be nothing like my sister who needed a separate room for her clothes, accessories and cosmetics, so it should have been fine.

It was still the middle of the night so I decided to give Seth a chance to rest fully and decided to call him in the morning. No one could assure that telecommunications were truly safe and private in this world and I was more willing to call than text him.

While I surveyed my surroundings I managed to keep my eyes off of the girl that was in the room with me. Eventually, after examining the window and the street below us for far too long, I turned around so I was facing bed. She sat on the edge of it, motionless, staring at the pattern of the wallpaper.

"You must be tired. Why don't you go take a shower and go to sleep."

"Ok." she nodded, her voice empty, bleak and somewhat submissive. "Are you staying?" she asked as she looked up.

"Yes, until the morning." I swayed on my feet slightly and not knowing what to do with my hands under her scrutinizing gaze I shoved them into the front pockets of my pants. She, once again, responded with a barely-there nod and got up to collect something from the duffelbag.

For the next twenty minutes I listened to the sound of running water in the adjoining bathroom. It reminded me of the waterfalls that we used to camp by and it was soothing as long as I managed to keep it out off my head that that waterfall was cascading down the petite body of a beautiful brunette. I felt like such a creep as I waited for her to exit the bathroom. Annoyed with myself I started pacing the room. When the door of the bathroom started to open I returned to my seat swiftly and acted as if I was playing with my phone. It was so often used by people to avoid contact with others that I thought she would see through my pathetic act.

However, once I took a peek at her, I realised that she did her best to avoid eye contact with me too. She was most likely embarrassed and uncomfortable with me being in the room as she readied herself for sleep. Only when she sat in the bed and cocooned herself in the bedsheets, her eyes rose up to meet mine.

"Are you planning on staring at me while I sleep?" a shadow of humorous mocking crossed her warm eyes but the lack of sleep was still evident.

"The doors and windows actually." That earned a look of horror from her.

"When was the last time you slept?" The worry and horror in her voice were very sweet and my slowed down brain actually took off into the direction of thinking when was the last time I slept but I couldn't come up with the answer as fast as Bella wanted me to. "You have to sleep. Sleep is detrimental. At least, if you don't care about your health, think about your performance at work. It must suffer if you're not rested." Damn, she was good, but when did she manage to become my psychotherapeut?

I could have held myself together until the morning if I set my mind to it, but she pointed out the holes in the wall that I put between me and sleep and I just yawned uncontrollably.

"Fine. You're right." I stood up, took the second pillow from the unoccupied side of the bed and the decorative blanket that was casted aside when Bella prepared the bed for sleeping. I walked around the bed to the side that Bella occupied - I needed to put myself inbetween her and the door - and dropped the pillow on the ground.

"What are you doing?" she was questioning my sanity.

"Sleeping on the floor between you and the door." It was just that simple but she wasn't happy with my answer and a scowl formed on her face.

"If you want to sleep between me and the door, fine, I'll scoot over. There's no need for you to sleep on the floor and hurt your back, this bed is triple the size of the bed I slept back home in Forks." She was so passionate about making me feel comfortable that she ventured into the dark waters and her voice broke with the last words of that sentence. She had lost her home. Even if after Charlie's death she owned the place as the only living relative and the sole recipient of everything Chief owned, the place one's father was killed in could never feel homey again.

Feeling the need to please her, to comfort her, I gave in without the fight I was planning to put up. Giving me space, she scooted to the other side of the bed while I leaned down to pick up the pillow from the ground and placed it on the bed. I was still fully clothed, only my shoes and the jacket were off when I laid on top of the sheets and pulled the decorative blanket on.

"Happy?" I looked at her and she smiled.

"Now I can at least sleep guilt-free."

"Good night, Bella."

"Goodnight, Edward." we both yawned and I switched the light off. It was going to be a weird night.

Actually, weird couldn't define it. Once the lights was off, the exhaustion overtook Bella and her breathing evened out soon enough. I, on the other hand, kept staring into the ceiling purposelessly as it was too dark to make out the patterns or imperfections in the dark. There was this unknown feeling that was running through my body that kept me awake and the closer to me she was, the more intense the feeling was. After trying to forget the girl's presence in the room, I changed my tactics to acknowledging it and I started listening to her breathing again. That did the job as I drifted off into a dreamless slumber.

My peace didn't last long as the darkness started fighting me and my empty dream world turned into a battlefield. I woke up next to a thrashing girl. I switched the bedside lamp on. Bella was turning, breathing raggedly and mumbling something incoherent. I was stunned for a moment when I realised that the only coherent word I could make out was my name. I was snapped out of my daze when she almost fell out off the bed. I reached out to catch her before she did and then shifted so that I was closer to her and started caressing her still damp from the shower hair while trying to talk her awake.

Her bewildered eyes snapped open and tears spilled down her cheeks. Her head was already between both of my hands and those tears were just a swipe of a finger away.

"I-i-m s-so-r-r-y." She stuttered through sniffling.

"Don't be ridiculous Bella. What you are going through is a normal, uncontrollable reaction. I would be more concerned if you didn't react this way." I ran my hand from the temple through her hair and then brought the hand back to pick a strand of hair that had fallen over her face and tuck it behind her ear. She leaned into my hand and I felt an overwhelming need to pull her into my embrace like I did back in the hut. _Why was I so handsy with her?_ It just seemed so natural from the very beginning when I saw the young scared girl in the PD.

I dropped my hands from her face and she closed her eyes as if to hide her emotions. The fact that I had married my job didn't give me any reason or justification for becoming close to the people related to cases. Another single tear trickled down her face but I kept myself from brushing it away.

She opened her teary eyes and glanced at the clock.

"We should go back to sleep." She sniffled and I expressed my agreement with a silent nod, I switched the light off.

During this episode we both ended up closer to the center of the bed and to each other: even after Bella turned away from me, she was still a bent-arm away. I rolled on my side, facing Bella's hidden form and started counting her breaths yet again. They were still a little uneven and there were occasional sniffles but she tried to act strong and tried to deal with her feelings without my help.

I think, the second time I fell asleep before she did, nonetheless just like the previous time, I didn't rest for long. I was jerked awake by another round of thrashing and kicking and unlike the time before, she was closer to me and her legs actually hit me multiple times. Not wanting her to hurt herself I wrapped my arms around her body and whispered in her ear half-trying to wake her from her nightmares, half-trying to soothe her while asleep so that she wouldn't lose precious sleeping time trying to cry herself back to sleep.


End file.
